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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



INDIVIDUAL WORK FOR 
INDIVIDUALS 



A RECORD OF PERSONAL 

EXPERIENCES AND 

CONVICTIONS 



BY H. CLAY TRUMBULL 

Author of " Prayer : Its Nature and Scope ; " ** Illustrative 

Answers to Prayer ; " " War Memories of 

an Army Chaplain," etc. 



NE\V YORK: 

THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF YOUNG MEN'S 
CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS 

igoi 



^ 






TM€ LIB«A«V Of 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copife* Rtctfvfo 

SEP. 12 1901 

. CoPYWOWT oerw 

COPY a 



Copyright, 1901, 
By H. CLAY TRUMBULL. 



THE CAXTON PRESS 
NEW YORK. 



preface 

This is not merely a narrative of personal 
experiences in the line of effort for the spir- 
itual welfare of others. It is rather an illus- 
tration of what God is ever ready to do for 
one who will work for him and for those 
whom he loves, as God opens the opportu- 
nity in his providence. It is a presentation 
of the best way of doing missionary work 
in the home and the foreign field, and an 
appeal for the doing of such work by all. 

The truth enforced in these pages is that 
God's chosen way of winning souls to 
Christ is by one person leading another 
person. To be sure, this truth is here 
illustrated, in many cases, out of the 
writer's personal experience, but most 
truths have come home to the heart of 
a writer in that way ; yet this, in no sense, 
makes any such truth the writer's exclusive 
possession. 



Ipretace 

When Jesus Christ sought to win the 
world to himself, he said to his chosen 
disciples, who had themselves been enlisted 
one at a time, '^ Go ye therefore, and make 
disciples [or pupils] of all the nations/' 
Making disciples of all the nations involved 
winning to the teacher the individuals in 
those nations. So, the seeking of a single 
individual by a single individual has been 
God's chosen way of evangelizing, or of 
doing missionary work, from the begin- 
ning of the Christian ages even to the 
present day. 

We have a responsibility for the right 
hearing, and for the right understanding, of 
God's truth by those to whom we proclaim 
it. It is not enough for us to cry out a 
message to those who may hear, or who 
may not ; to those who may understand it, 
or who may not. We have a hearer to win 
as well as a hearer to proclaim to. As 
Dr. Duryea forcibly put it, "The sick soul 
needs not a lecture on medicine, but a pre- 
scription." Has not the ordinary method 



Iptetace 

of the physician of souls been that of a lec- 
turer rather than of a prescriber ? Is this 
the proper, or the sensible way? This vol- 
ume advocates the method of wise personal 
prescription for the sick soul. That it may 
have influence in that direction, over stu- 
dents and followers of the Great Physician, 
is the desire and prayer of 



H. Clay Trumbull. 



Philadelphia, 

June 8, igoi. 



i 



Contents 

I 

Why is Work for Single Souls a 

Duty ? 3 

II 

Won to Christ by a Reluctant Letter . 11 

III 

A Life-Resolve to Do Individual Work . 19 

IV 
Speaking for Christ to a Traveling 

Companion 31 

V 

Faithfulness to a Fellow-Boarder . , 53 

VI 
Work for Single Souls in Army Life . 73 

VII 
Winning those Met in Church and 

Bible Class iii 

VIII 
Talk about Personal Work at North- 
field 125 

vii 



Contents 

IX 
Other Talks about Personal Work . .137 

X 

Personal Work by Others 151 

XI 

Why is Personal Work so Neglected ? . 167 

XII 
Influence, on Others, of Personal Con- 
viction 177 



viii 



INDIVIDUAL WORK FOR 
INDIVIDUALS 



Wb5 is Motft tor Single 
Souls a H)uts? 

Not every man can be a great preacher 
to a great congregation ; but every man 
can speak a timely word to an individual, 
if, indeed, his heart be set on so doing. 
And, ordinarily, it is a better work to reach 
an individual in this way than to endeavor 
to reach a multitude in the other way. 

As a rule, the intensity of the appeal is 
in inverse proportion to the area covered ; 
in other words, the greater your audience, 
the smaller the probability of your appeal 
coming home to a single heart. I once 
heard Henry Ward Beecher say, " The 
longer I live, the more confidence I have 
in those sermons preached where one man 
is the minister and one man is the congre- 
gation ; where there's no question as to who 
is meant when the preacher says, ' Thou 
3 



InDivtDual OTorft 

art the man.' " Years after this, I heard 
the Rev. Dr. Nevius speak similarly as to 
the missionary field in China. He said he 
wanted no great preachers in his field. 
That was not the sort of missionaries who 
were needed in China. If he could find a 
man who could talk familiarly, face to face, 
with another man, wherever he met him, 
he had missionary work for that kind of 
man in China. This is the way to do 
Christian work in China, or in America. 

Yet the popular idea of the favorable 
conditions for successful preaching is to 
have an attractive church building, into 
which a large congregation shall be gath- 
ered, to be preached to by an eloquent 
preacher. And if, indeed, the Great Com- 
mission were, '^ Come ye from all the world 
and hear the gospel," there might seem to 
be some reason for accepting the popular 
idea of the conditions of successful preach- 
ing as having a sound basis. The one 
illustration, out of the gospel days, cited as 
if in approval of modern methods of preach- 
4 



ing, IS the appeal of Peter in Jerusalem on 
the Day of Pentecost, when three thousand 
souls were newly blessed in Christ. Yet 
is that illustration rightly used in support 
of modern methods of preaching ? 

That ingathering, on the Day of Pente- 
cost, was not merely a result of the " ser- 
mon'* of Peter. John the Baptist had been 
foretelling the mission of Christ for several 
years. John's disciples had repeated and 
extended his message. Jesus had sent out 
his twelve apostles to make known his 
work and the truth, and again he had sent 
out seventy others also on a similar mission. 
Christ's own words had increased the power 
of the words of John, and of the twelve, and 
of the seventy. He had told all who be- 
lieved in him to tarry in Jerusalem until 
the power from on high had come. The time 
was one of the great festivals of the Jewish 
Church. All these new signs combined 
with the lessons which had been taught by 
the Jewish ritual and the words of priest 
and prophet for centuries. Hence to as- 
5 



InDiviDual morft 

cribe to Peter's sermon the ingathering, at 
that time, of three thousand persons from 
among the godly Jews there gathered, 
would be an absurdity. 

But how had Peter and the other apostles 
been themselves brought in to Christ's 
service? Were they won by a preacher 
appealing to a multitude ? That is a 
point to be considered, when we would 
know whether Christian work is to be done 
with the one or with the many. John the 
Baptist spoke to two of his disciples con- 
cerning Jesus, and the two turned and fol- 
lowed Jesus. One of those men was John, 
the other was Andrew. At once Andrew 
w-ent and called Simon, who was later 
known as Peter. Thus it seems that Peter, 
who is credited with winning three thou- 
sand souls bv a crreat sermon, was himself 
won as an individual by an individual. 
That is God's chosen way among men. 
Then Philip, a fellow-townsman of Andrew 
and Peter, was won as a follower of Jesus. 
Next after this Philip summoned Na- 
6 



thanael ; and the circle of leaders was fairly 
started by the method of one man being the 
preacher, and one man being the hearer. 

Circumstances in connection with my 
being won to Christ, and with the very 
beginning of my Christian life, led me to 
examine carefully the teachings of Scrip- 
ture, of history, and of reason, as to the 
truth in this matter ; and this it is that has 
brought me to the conviction that all these 
several indications of duty combine to 
show that appeals to the individual by an 
individual is the hopeful way of winning 
the race to Christ In view of this fact, 
this kind of effort has been the most promi- 
nent feature of my Christian work, in what- 
ever field I have labored, in the half-century 
since I was in this way led into Christ's 
service. 

If a preacher has a large congregation to 
preach to, he can encourage himself with 
the thought that some one may be helped, 
even though he never has evidence of the 
fact. If, on the other hand, his work as 
7 



UnDiviDual Morft 

an individual is with an individual, he is 
pretty sure to know whether or not his 
work is effective. In such a case his 
whole congregation is sure to hear him, 
and, ordinarily, he hears from his whole 
congregation. He can know the result of 
his work. But many Christian hunters 
have the feeling of the small-game hunter 
who said, "In gunning, I ordinarily prefer 
to use a handful of small shot; for then Fm 
likely to hit something. With me a single 
bullet is apt to scatter." 

Many a man who is eloquent before a 
large congregation is dumb before a single 
individual. Such a man often confesses 
that he is not an effective worker in an 
** inquiry meeting." Even in a season of 
special religious interest he wants to turn 
the work of conversing with individuals 
over to somebody else. Yet such a man 
as Mr. Moody, who thought more of how 
many individual souls he could reach than 
of his preaching before any audience, how- 
ever large, was always desirous of getting 
8 



through with his preparatory pulpit appeal 
and of getting at his more important work 
of pleading with individual souls in the 
inquiry meeting. And that is the feeling 
of every earnest evangelist who thinks 
more of the work of reaping and harvest- 
ing than of the work of incessantly sowing 
broadcast seed that may, or that may not, 
have final fruitage. 

Of course, the preference of preachers for 
a considerable congregation of hearers 
grows naturally out of their defective train- 
ing in the theological seminaries, and their 
life habit in the pulpit. They have come 
to have strong confidence in proportion as 
they stand in their pulpit barricade and 
train their sermon columbiads on the gath- 
ered hosts before them. But to go out 
into the open field and engage in a hand- 
to-hand struggle with a single individual 
is quite a different matter. They have had 
scant training in that sort of conflict ; there- 
fore they confess their feeling of unfitness 
for its entering. Bossuet, the great French 
9 



UnDtvt&ual motft 

preacher, said frankly as to this very mat- 
ter : " It requires more faith and courage 
to say two words face to face with one 
single sinner, than from the pulpit to re- 
buke two or three thousand persons, ready 
to listen to everything, on condition of 
forgetting all." 

But whether attractive or unattractive, 
easy or difficult, the duty of the individual 
to press Christ on the individual is impera- 
tive on every Christian, and it is the 
supremely hopeful mode of evangelism. 
And, whether one is a clergyman or a 
layman, he cannot be doing his full duty 
until he has become ready to do this work, 
and is skilled in its doing. 



lo 



II 
Men to Cbrfst b^ a IReluctant Xetter 

My early life was passed in Stonington, 
Connecticut One of my most intimate 
friends there came out and confessed Christ 
during a revival, or season of special religious 
interest. Quite a number of my young 
friends took the same step that he did. I 
was interested in what interested them, and 
the matter was prominent in my thoughts. 
Had any one of them, or had any one else, 
spoken a personal word to me on the sub- 
ject, at that time, I would have welcomed 
it gladly; but no such word came. 

I was, indeed, somewhat surprised that 
my friend had no word to say on the sub- 
ject, then or at some time later, intimate as 
he and I were. Especially was this the 
case as we corresponded freely during his 
college course in Yale. When I was 
about twenty-one years old I removed to 
II 



UrtDiviDual OTorft 

Hartford, and I continued to correspond 
freely with my Stonington friend. 

In the winter of 1851-52 there was a 
widespread religious interest in Hartford, in 
connection with special meetings led by the 
Rev. Charles G. Finney of Oberlin. But 
as I was boarding at a house where the 
young men at the table had only words of 
contempt or ridicule for the whole matter, 
I attended none of the meetings, did not at 
the first hear Mr. Finney, and had no con- 
scious interest in his work or its results. 
In a letter from my old friend in Stoning- 
ton he mentioned incidentally that there 
was again a season of special religious in- 
terest in our native place ; but all this took 
no special hold on me, or caused me to 
feel that my pre-eminent interests were 
involved. 

At that time I was engaged in the chief 
engineer's office of the Hartford, Provi- 
dence, and Fishkill Railroad Company. 
One noon, as I was returning from my mid- 
day meal, I stopped at the post-office for the 
12 



TOon to Cbrtet b^ a IReluctant Xettet 

noon mail. A letter came from my Stoning- 
ton friend. This surprised me, for I had not 
yet acknowledged his letter of a few days 
before. As I read the first few lines of the 
letter, I saw that it was a personal appeal 
to me. At once crumpling the letter in 
my hand I thrust it into my pocket, saying 
to a friend who was with me, " I think there 
must be a big revival in Stonington, if it 
has set my old friend preaching to me." 
Then, brushing the subject away from my 
mind, I started down Asylum Street toward 
my office and my work. 

But the subject of that letter, and the 
letter itself, would not stay brushed away. 
I asked myself how it was that that letter, 
on that subject, had been written. In all 
our years of intimacy since my friend had 
come out openly for Christ, he had never 
before said or written a word on this sub- 
ject. Had it been an easy thing for him 
to do now? Was it a desire for his own 
enjoyment, or a desire for my good, that 
had prompted this writing? It was worth 
13 



In&ivi&ual TKHotft 

while to read that letter, and consider its 
contents, before throwing it aside perma- 
nently. These were the thoughts that 
naturally ran in my mind as I walked to- 
ward my office. 

The office of the chief engineer, where 
my work lay, was on the third floor of one 
of the stone towers of the railroad station. 
Instead of stopping on that floor, I passed 
on up the stairs to the fourth floor, and 
went into a little map-closet on that upper 
floor. Shutting myself into the map- 
closet, where I could be entirely alone, I 
took out from my pocket the crumpled 
letter, smoothed it out, and began with real 
interest to read. 

"I have been too long silent," wrote my 
friend. " The prevalence of a deep religious 
feeling in this community has, to some ex- 
tent, opened my eyes to my former short- 
comings, and led me to consider what was 
my duty in using my influence, small as it 
may be, to direct the attention of any of 
my friends to the consideration of eternal 
H 



TIBlon to Cbttet b^ a IReluctant Xetter 

things. Often have I felt like speaking to 
you on this subject, but as often have 
timidity and fear kept me back." I noted 
this statement even as I read. 

*' We have been companions and intimate 
friends for years. We have enjoyed the 
society of each other, and together the so- 
ciety of others. Seldom has a harsh word 
or an unkind feeling marred the harmony 
of our intercourse, and it seems to me that 
thus what you might have considered from 
another an act of intrusion you will con- 
sider from me an evidence of my sincere re- 
gard, and my earnest desire for your good.'* 

After this half-apology for speaking on 
this all-important subject, my friend went 
on to urge me to seek and find peace in 
Christ. Then, in conclusion, he said, "Do 
be persuaded by me. If I could be the 
instrument however humble, and to how- 
ever small an extent, of leading you to 
think seriously of this, I should consider 
that I had more than repaid your kindness 
and interest in me. Let me beg you by 
15 



the remembrance of our friendship, but 
more than all by the regard for your own 
good, think of these things. ... If any im- 
pression is produced on your mind [by this 
appeal] do not attempt to drive it away, 
but seek light and help from the only 
source whence they can be derived." 

Then, as evidencing his thought that 
little good might come from this personal 
appeal, and that it might, after all, be 
deemed an intrusion, he said, in conclu- 
sion : '* I have now tried to acquit myself 
of a duty too long neglected, but do not 
think it has been an easy one. It is one 
I could not avoid, and, although I have 
delayed it, I determined to delay it no 
longer. I shall not ask you to excuse me 
for writing you so serious a letter, the 
first one [of the sort] I ever wrote you. 
You will, I am sure, not accuse me of any 
desire to hurt your feelings, but will appre- 
ciate the love which dictated and the earn- 
est desire for your good which caused its 
expression. I may never have the courage 
i6 



Wion to Cbxiet b^ a IReluctant Xetter 

to address you again in this manner, and, 
if I do not, be advised by me now, I ask 
no answer to this, nor shall I expect any, 
for I know exactly your feelings. But if, 
after acknowledging the truth of what I 
have written, you determine to follow my 
advice, I beg you to let me know." 

Before I had read the last of this letter, 
I was on my knees in that corner map- 
room in that lofty tower summit, asking 
forgiveness of God, and committing my- 
self to a long slighted Saviour. That was 
a turning-point in my life course ; and in a 
half-century that has passed since then I 
have been renewedly more and more grate- 
ful for the writing of that letter, and for the 
loving spirit that prompted it. And I have 
wished that other friends were as true to 
their friends. 

My friend was, indeed, surprised and 
gladdened by my letter in quick response 
to his, telling of my action on his appeal, 
and of my new life purpose. After years 
of Christian sympathy with that dear friend 
17 



and brother in Christ, to whom I owed so 
much, I went back to our native place to 
have a part in the funeral services when 
they had brought him, from his New York 
City home, to lay him in the village ceme- 
tery in Stonington. 

As one and another bore testimony to 
his work and his worth, I added my tribute 
by saying that whatever others might testify 
as to his influence for good in the commu- 
nity, I could say gratefully that to his 
Christian fidelity, and to his faithful appeal 
for Christ, I owed, under God, everything 
that I rejoiced in for this life and for the 
life that is to come. 

And the way of my being won to Christ, 
as it were, by a word, and that, in a sense a 
reluctant word, taught me a lesson as to 
the way of working for souls. That les- 
son was impressed on me at the time, and 
it has been renewedly impressed on me 
by experience and observation, year by 
year, in all the years since then. 



i8 



Ill 

H Xife^lResolve to 2)o 
lln&fpf&ual morft 

In view of the fact that a personal appeal 
to me, from an individual, to seek the 
Saviour, had had an influence over my 
thoughts and action beyond all the ser- 
mons and addresses to any collection of 
persons of which I had been a part, the 
importance of individual effort with individ- 
uals for Christ naturally assumed a new 
importance in my mind. And the fact 
that the friend whose first appeal to me had 
won me to Christ had, even while often 
prompted to it as a duty, postponed that 
appeal for years, to his lack and mine, 
because of his " timidity and fear," had em- 
phasized the truth that the individual Chris- 
tian has a duty to urge individuals about 
him to come to Christ, whether he likes 
to do it or not. 

19 



UnDtviDual TCOlotft 

And thus, in my being won to Christ as 
I had been, I had not only received a rich 
blessing to my own soul, but I had, at the 
same time, been taught, with fresh and irre- 
sistible force, a truth of truths as to my per- 
sonal duty in work for Christ and for those 
whom Christ loves. I, as an individual, had 
been won to Christ by an individual follower 
and representative of Christ. And I had 
been taught that every individual follower 
of Christ has a duty to make known to 
other individuals the duty of serving and 
representing Christ. And thus my life 
mission was given me as a duty when my 
life trust in Christ was shown me as a 
privilege. Does it seem strange, then, that 
my half-century of Christian service since 
that time has been largely influenced by 
this beginning of my Christian life, under 
its peculiar circumstances? 

It was some time after this that I learned 
how prominent this method of extending 
the truth had been among the most de- 
voted lovers of Christ in former centuries ; 
20 



n %itC^1RC60lVC 

but to me it came as a fresh truth, and as 
almost a self-evident one. I later found 
that this had been the method of evangeliz- 
ing, not only among the apostles, but in 
almost every revival of apostolic zeal. 
Reinerius, the papal inquisitor, reported 
against the Vaudois, or Waldenses, in the 
thirteenth century, that " he who has been 
a disciple for seven days looks out some 
one whom he may teach in his turn, so that 
there is a continual increase!' That, surely, 
is a good way of having the cause of Christ 
progress where the followers of Christ are, 
in our neighborhood — or anywhere else. 

So soon as I had come to the point of 
Christian decision for myself, I looked 
about me for another man. I did not have 
far to go. An associate with me in the 
office of the chief engineer was a fel- 
low-boarder with me in the house which 
was my temporary home. We were accus- 
tomed to walk together to and from the 
boarding-house and the office. We were 
near each other all day in the office, and we 

21 



sat near each other at the boarding-house 
table. As we walked together from the 
house to the office, I told my friend of my 
new decision for Christ, and I urged him 
to make a like decision. He turned toward 
me as we walked, and said earnestly: 

"Trumbull, your words cut me to the 
heart. You little think how they rebuke 
me. I've long been a professed follower 
of Christ; and you have never suspected 
this, although we've been in close asso- 
ciation in house and office for years. I've 
never said a word to you for the Sav- 
iour whom I trust. I've never urged you 
to trust him. I've never said a word for 
him. And now a follower of his, and a 
friend of yours, from a distance, has been 
the means of leading you to him. And here 
are you, inviting me to come to that Sav- 
iour of whom I have been a silent follower 
for years. May God forgive me for my 
lack of faithfulness ! " 

It will be believed that this new incident 
pressed on me more forcibly the common 

22 



unwillingness of Christians to speak for 
Christ to their individual friends or asso- 
ciates, and the duty of such speaking as a 
hopeful means of honoring their Master 
and of helping their fellows. 

Then it was that I made a purpose and 
resolve for life. The purpose I formed 
was, as an imperative duty, not to fail in my 
Christian life in the particular way that these 
two friends of mine confessed that they had 
consciously failed. I determined that as I 
loved Christ, and as Christ loved souls, I 
would press Christ on the individual soul, 
so that none who were in the proper sphere 
of my individual responsibility or influence 
should lack the opportunity of meeting the 
question whether or not they would in- 
dividually trust and follow Christ. The 
resolve I made was, that whenever I was 
in such intimacy with a soul as to be justi- 
fied in choosing my subject of conversa- 
tion, the theme of themes should have 
prominence between us, so that I might 
learn his need, and, if possible, meet it. 
23 



InMviDual 'HClorft 

That decision has largely shaped my 
Christian life-work in the half-century that 
has followed its making. I have not al- 
ways been faithful in this sphere of Chris- 
tian service, as, indeed, I have failed or 
lacked in every other sphere ; but my re- 
solve at this point has been adhered to as 
faithfully as any other resolve I ever made, 
and I have steadily grown in the conviction 
that it was a wise resolve. The more ex- 
tensive and varied has been my experience, 
and the more I have known of the Christian 
labors of others, the more positive is my 
conviction that the winning of one soul to 
Christ, or of ten thousand souls to Christ, 
is best done by the effort of an individual 
with an individual, not by the proclama- 
tion'^of an individual to a multitude, larger 
or smaller, without the accompanying or 
following face-to-face pleading with the 
single soul. 

My experience came to be varied, but 
in every fresh phase of that experience the 
pre-eminent value of work for one soul at a 
24 



H %itC:^1RC60lVC 

time, over work for a multitude of souls on 
the same occasion, stands out as the truth 
beyond challenge or question. This was my 
conviction in the first days of my Christian 
consecration. This is my conviction to-day 
more positively than ever before. How- 
ever others may feel about it, I cannot 
have a doubt on the subject. Winning one 
soul at a time usually results in the winning 
of a multitude of souls in the process of 
time. But addressing a multitude of souls, 
and urging them all to trust and serve 
Christ, may not be the means of winning 
even one soul to Christ, now or at any 
time. 

Within a few weeks of my first enter- 
ing Christ's service, I most unexpectedly 
found myself summoned to superintend a 
newly organized mission Sunday-school in 
Hartford. In this way I was providentially 
started in the line of religious work that 
has been my chief method of Christian effort 
from that time to the present. In this, my 
first field of Christian work, I found that I 
25 



InDiviDual Wioxli 

could do most and best for my charge by 
appealing to the individual when he and I 
were alone together, rather than by my 
most effective appeals from the desk, or by 
my most attractive endeavors to impress 
the school as a whole. Occasionally, when 
a boy whose conduct and influence seemed 
hopelessly bad was not to be reached 
through anything said by teacher or super- 
intendent in the presence of others, I found 
that a personal talk with him near his 
haunts of an evening, when no one else 
could see us, would give me a hold on 
him, so that I could lead him to a better 
view, and a higher estimate, of his possi- 
bilities and duties. A good superintendent 
or a good teacher will often do more for 
Christ and for the most incorrigible pupil 
by a half-hour's talk with that pupil all by 
himself out of the school than is done for 
such a person in a year's time by superin- 
tendent and teacher in the school or class 
as a whole. And this kind of effort I came 
to value more and more. 
26 



B %iU^1Rceolvc 

National politics was just then assuming 
more importance as a great moral issue, in 
view of the struggle over the extension of 
slavery into free territory. It was about 
the time of the formation of the Republi- 
can party. I was on the stump for the first 
candidates of that party ; and I was active 
in the work of canvassing for the election 
of those candidates. In this field, as in the 
mission Sunday-school field, I found that 
the effective political work was to be done, 
not in the public meetings, addressed by 
eloquent speakers, but in the quiet, sys- 
tematic searching out of the individual 
voter, and winning him to the right side. 
Indeed, I had the privilege of introducing 
and advocating measures for an extension 
of this canvassing for individual voters 
which were novel then, but which gained 
in recognition and prominence as their 
superior effectiveness was evidenced. No 
political campaign is won by speakers on 
the stump. Stump speeches are well 
enough in their way. They arouse enthu- 
27 



UnDiviDual IKIlorft 

siasm and make voters ready to work ; but 
the campaign is won by the man-to-man 
canvass of the individual voter. One man 
is more than a hundred in the field of mis- 
sions or of politics. Until that thought 
prevails, the world will never be won to 
Christ, or to any good cause. 

During the Civil War I unexpectedly 
received an invitation to enter army ser- 
vice as a chaplain. My state of health 
having forbidden my accepting any other 
position in the army, I accepted this as one 
where I might hope to be of some service. 
I was accordingly ordained and went out, 
and for three years I was privileged to be 
in active army service. There, again, the 
Christian work that told was not that of 
address to a collection of persons, but the 
man-to-man appeal of the chaplain to the 
single officer or soldier, when no one else 
was within sight or hearing. And this ad- 
vantage was not because the chaplain was 
a chaplain, and therefore he had to work 
in a peculiar way, but it was because the 
28 



chaplain was a man and his charge was 
made up of individual men, and his best 
way to deal with his men v/as the best way 
to deal with all men. 

After my return from the army I was 
again in the Sunday-school missionary field, 
which I had left to go out as a chaplain. 
For ten years I addressed gatherings of 
persons in numbers from ten or fifteen to 
five or six thousand each. In this work I 
went from Maine to California, and from 
Minnesota to Florida. This gave me an 
opportunity to test the relative value of 
speeches to gathered assemblies. Later, I 
have been for more than twenty-five years 
an editor of a religious periodical that has 
had a circulation of more than a hundred 
thousand a week during much of the time. 
Meanwhile I have published more than 
thirty different volumes. Yet looking back 
upon my work, in all these years, I can see 
more direct results of good through my 
individual efforts with individuals, than I 
can know of through all my spoken words 
29 



InDiviDual limorft 

to thousands upon thousands of persons 
in religious assemblies, or all my written 
words on the pages of periodicals or of 
books. And in this I do not think that 
my experience has been wholly unlike that 
of many others who have had large experi- 
ence in both spheres of influence. 

Reaching one person at a time is the 
best way of reaching all the world in time. 
Reaching one person at a time is the best 
way of reaching a single individual. There- 
fore seeking a single individual is the best 
way of winning one person or a multitude 
to Christ. The world is made up of indi- 
viduals. Christ longs for individuals to be 
in his service. Therefore he who considers 
Christ's love, or the world's needs, will 
think most of individuals, and will do most 
for individuals. 



30 



IV 

Speafting for Cbrist to a TLvavclirxQ 
Companion 

I soon found that it was not necessary to 
be with a needy soul in an " inquiry meet- 
ing," or in a room alone with him, where 
circumstances seemed to favor a religious 
conversation, before I improved the oppor- 
tunity to speak a word for Christ to him. 
If there was an opportunity to speak on 
any subject, there was an opportunity to 
speak on the theme of themes, and I there- 
fore came to act on this conviction. 

Entering, one November morning, at the 
Grand Central Station in New York, a 
crowded train for Boston, I found the only 
vacant seat was one alongside of a pleas- 
ant-faced, florid-complexioned, large-framed 
young man, and that seat I took, and be- 
gan to read the morning paper. After a 
few minutes my seat-mate took from his 
31 



UnDiviDual TKIlorft 

valise a large case bottle of whiskey and a 
metal drinking-cup. Before drinking him- 
self, he proffered it to me. As I thanked 
him and declined it, he drank by himself. 
I still read my paper, but I thought of my 
seat -mate, and I watched for an oppor- 
tunity. In a little while he again turned to 
his valise, and, as before, took out his whis- 
key bottle. Once more he offered it to me, 
and again I declined it with thanks. As he 
put away the bottle, after drinking from it 
the second time, he said : 

" Don't you ever ddnk, my friend?" 

'' No, my friend, I do not." 

''Well, I guess you think I'm a pretty 
rough fellow." 

" I think you're a very generous-hearted 
fellow. But I tell you frankly I don't think 
your whiskey-drinking is the best thing 
about you." 

'' Well, I don't believe it is." 

'' Why do you keep it up, then ? " 

At this he told me something of his 
story. He was a Massachusetts country 
32 



B traveling Companion 

boy, now a clerk in a large New York 
jobbing house. He was just going to his 
old country home to spend Thanksgiv- 
ing. He confessed that he had fallen 
into bad ways in the city, very different 
ways from those of his boyhood in Massa- 
chusetts. I asked him about his mother, 
and he spoke lovingly and tenderly of her. 
He said he knew she was praying for him 
constantly. This brought us into close 
quarters. I told him that I was sure his 
mother would be happy if he prayed for 
himself, and that he knew that he ought to 
do this. I urged him to do it. 

He was evidently surprised and touched 
by my expressions of interest in him. 
Then he spoke gratefully of another show 
of interest in him. He said : 

" I was coming up Broadway, the other 
night. It was about midnight. I had been 
having ^ a time.' I'll own up, I'd been off 
on a regular ' bum.' A little ahead of me I 
saw a fellow in a doorway, and he came out 
as if he were coming for me. I squared 
33 



away towards him, as I came near him, for 
I thought he was ' laying ' for me. But as I 
got opposite to him he just gave me a card, 
and asked me to accept it, and I passed on. 

"When I got to the next lamp-post I 
looked at that card, and it told about a 
place on Twenty -third Street, called a 
* Young Men's Christian Association.' 
where they'd like to have young men come 
in any time, and make themselves at home. 
And there that fellow, that Td squared away 
to, was out there at midnight * laying ' for 
just such ' bummers ' as I was, to invite 'em 
to come in and make themselves at home in 
that place. I ' swow,' I mean to go up to 
that place, when I get back, and give 'em 
five dollars for the good they're doing." 

I told my seat-mate that those who love 
Christ love such as he, because Christ loves 
them. And I urged him to make his 
Thanksgiving Day at his old homestead a 
real day of thanksgiving, by telling his 
good mother that her prayers for him were 
answered. 

34 



B XLtnvclim Companion 

** That would make my old mother pretty 
happy, if I did that," he said heartily. 

"Wouldn't you like to make your old 
mother happy, as you go home to have a 
Thanksgiving with her ? " I asked. 

" Indeed I would," he said. 

As we came to my Hartford home, 
where I was to leave the train, I took his 
hand and urged him again to do what he 
knew was his duty, and which would glad- 
den his good mother's heart. He thanked 
.me for my interest in his welfare. He 
promised to talk with his mother of our 
conversation. He assured me that he 
would endeavor to profit by our talk. I 
urged him to commit himself to Christ as 
the all-sufficient Saviour, and we parted. 

This was an illustration of the truth that 
not always does a word for Christ to a seat- 
mate in the cars, as we travel, result in 
evidence that that word is blessed in the 
final act of decision by the needy one. 
Yet it also illustrates the fact that a faithful 
word to a temporary seat-mate may be a 
35 



UnMxJtDual TOIlorft 

profitable opportunity for giving faithful 
counsel, even though we know nothing as 
to the final outcome. 

I have had hundreds of such conversa- 
tions with seat-mates on the car, seat-mates 
whom I had never seen before, and whom 
I never met again. I never had such a 
conversation which I had reason to regret, 
or which seemed to be distasteful to my 
companion. And many such a conversa- 
tion has brought out the warmest side of 
a fellow- Christian, whom I have come to 
be intimate with in after years. ^Improv- 
ing such an occasion is a manifest duty. 
The result of such a conversation is with 
Him for whom we seek to improve it. 



One morning, as I was riding on a train 
in Western Connecticut, I saw a young 
man whom I had seen at a religious meet- 
ing the evening before. I had never seen 
him except at that time; but there was a 
deep religious interest just then in the 
church where I had seen him, and accord- 
36 



B XTraveKng Companion 

ingly I took a seat by his side and began 
conversation on the subject. He seemed 
glad to be spoken to about it, and I said 
I hoped he would enter into Christ's ser- 
vice with the others there who were doing 
so. He said he wished it were so. 

" Then why isn't it so ? " I asked. 
" You have nothing to do but to commit 
yourself at once to the loving Saviour as 
his servant and follower. He is more 
ready to accept you than you are to offer 
yourself." 

" Do you mean, Mr. Trumbull, that here 
on this car-seat, just now, I can give my- 
self to the Saviour, and he will accept me 
without any further preparation on my 
part ? " 

*'I mean just that,'* I said. '*The Sav- 
iour is ready when you are. There is no 
gain in your waiting; and no farther prep- 
aration is needed than for you to be 
ready to give yourself to him and to trust 
him unhesitatingly." 

He said not a word more about himself, 
37 



InDivtDual Morft 

but he gave evidence of a loving, trustful 
soul, when he reached out in thought after 
another, saying : 

" Mr. Trumbull, I've a brother who ought 
to be a follower of Christ I wish you 
could talk to him." 

That is one of the first evidences of the 
Christian spirit and life, — an interest in 
another soul, and the forgetting of self in 
that care for another Dr. Guthrie em- 
phasized this truth in an illustration in his 
" Gospel in Ezekiel," that impressed me 
profoundly in my early Christian life. A 
drifting boat was found in mid-ocean, that 
had come from a sinking vessel. Dis- 
covered by a passing ship, a boat and crew 
were sent in its pursuit. A man wellnigh 
exhausted was found in the boat from the 
wreck. As this man was lifted up, and 
taken out into the other boat, he partially 
revived, and his first feeble words were, be- 
fore he sank again into unconsciousness, 
"There's another man in the boat." Saved 
himself, his first thought was to have an- 
38 



M XTraveltng Companion 

other saved. That's the sign of true life. 
My seat-mate on the car that morning gave 
this sign of Hfe, and we parted for the time, 
as we neared our destination. 

The next thing that I heard from him 
was by letter from a retired country place 
in Vermont, where he was evidencing his 
interest in souls in more ways than one. 
He wrote of it, and I was moved by his let- 
ter. It gave fresh evidence that he was in 
Christ's service. He urged me to do more 
for souls and for the Saviour, and to urge 
others to do similarly. In his letter, he 
wrote : 

" O Mr. Trumbull ! you cannot urge 
the followers of Jesus in too strong terms 
to talk more of him. A kind word may 
save a soul! That soul may save a thou- 
sand! Do they reaHze it? When I re- 
member, at times, how my soul has longed, 
when a mere boy, a stranger in a great 
city, for some one to take an interest in me 
and my soul's welfare, I feel as though I 
should fly away for fear there is some one 
39 



UnDivtDual morft 

near me smothering the same awful feel- 
ings, and longing for that kind word of 
Christian sympathy. 

'^ I remember very well, the morning I 
packed my things to go and fill that situa- 
tion in that city, how my mother prayed 
for me, and said, as she thought of the 
temptations I should be subject to, ' O 
William, how I wish you were a Chris- 
tian ! ' I wished so too. She hoped all 
would be right. When, that day, I went 
into the garden to say good-by to father, 
as he saw me coming he turned his head 
to hide the tears, and he reached out his 
calloused hand, calloused for me, and said: 
' You are going away from home, William, 
and all you have in this world is your 
good name. Keep that. Attend church 
every Sabbath regularly somewhere, and 
you will come out all right' I promised 
him I would. I went away very sad, but 
determined to keep my promise. 

'^ For one whole year, Sabbath after Sab- 
bath, I attended one church, and sat in the 
40 



H XTraveltng Companion 

same seat, and no one ever intimated that 
he thought I had a soul ; and I was never 
sufficiently acquainted with a member of 
the church or congregation to be on 
speaking terms ; yet, at times, my sense of 
guilt was overwhelming, and oh for a 
friend! 'Say not ye, There are yet four 
months, and then cometh harvest ? . . . Lift 
up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for 
they are white already unto harvest/ " 
Could there be better evidence that he 
realized a Christian's duty, and that he 
wanted every Christian to do that duty ? 

In the country neighborhood where this 
new worker for Christ had his present 
home, the church and Sunday-school were 
closed, and there was no one to lead in an 
effort for their re-opening. So he opened 
the Sunday-school, and soon had sixty 
pupils connected with it. He was superin- 
tendent and principal teacher, and was a 
blessing in that neighborhood. He asked 
if I could not come up and show him what 
to do, and how to do it. Accordingly, I 
41 



went to his home and field, in Vermont, 
and was gladdened by what I saw of his 
faithful work among needy souls. But I 
felt that I had learned more from him than 
he had from me. 

How many souls there are waiting and 
longing to be blessed, as that Vermont 
boy waited and longed in his first year 
away from home ! One day, on Broad- 
way, I noticed a crowd about a little child. 
Pushing in among others, I saw that it 
was a strayed child. He was lost, and 
he knew no way of finding himself or 
his dear ones. Seeing my look of tender 
sympathetic interest- in him, the child 
looked up, and stretched out his hand to 
me, saying, in pleading tones, *' Won't you 
please to show me my way home ? " That 
cry has been sounding in my ears ever 
since, when I find myself near a wander- 
ing soul like that Vermont boy in the city, 
and like others who are about us on every 
side, as we ride and as we walk. There is 
work enough to do for Christ if only we 
42 



B Ztnvclim Companion 

will help the individuals near us who need 
our help, and who are ready to be helped. 



It is a singular fact that many a Chris- 
tian father, who can speak freely on the 
subject of personal religion to a stranger, 
or to an ordinary neighbor or acquaint- 
ance, seems to shrink from a direct word 
on this subject with his own child. This 
is, in a sense, like the feeling of the 
preacher who can freely make, from the 
pulpit, appeals for Christ to a large con- 
gregation, but who, somehow, feels re- 
strained from urging a single individual, as 
he is face to face with him, to surrender 
himself to Christ. I have had evidence of 
this fact, in many a case, to my surprise ; 
and I have been even asked by godly 
fathers to speak on this subject to their 
children, because they felt themselves in- 
competent to do so. To think of it! A 
Christian father hesitating to speak with 
his own child about the Saviour who loves 
them both, and whom the child needs. 
43 



UnDiviDual IMlotft 

One Sunday evening, when I was at the 
house of a New England clergyman, where 
I was to pass the night, I was speaking to 
him of his son, whom I had seen, and who 
had impressed me favorably. The father 
said that his son was a good boy, but he 
was entirely ignorant of his attitude toward 
Christ. He had never passed a word with 
him on this subject. His son seemed to 
be no more to his father, so far as this was 
concerned, than was any member of his 
congregation who had never called at the 
pastor's study for religious conversation, or 
had " risen for prayers *' in a church prayer- 
meeting. 

The next morning, as I was to drive 
several miles to take an early train to my 
city home, I was glad to find that this son 
was to accompany me. While it was yet 
too early for us to see each other's faces, 
as we sat on the same seat as we drove, it 
was not too early for us to come very near 
to each other in an earnest talk about our 
common duty and privileges in Christ. I 
44 



21 Zmvclim Companion 

found my young friend ready and glad to 
talk on the subject. He evidently wanted 
to trust himself to Christ, only he was not 
quite sure of the way to do it. As I 
pointed the plain path to him, and urged 
his entering it, he seemed more than glad 
to trust himself to the Saviour heartily, 
and at once. 

When we reached our destination for the 
morning, the young man thanked me 
warmly, and, as we clasped hands heartily 
in parting, I felt that it had been a profita- 
ble morning for both of us ; and I thanked 
God that I had the priceless privilege of 
helping that youth into the kingdom, as 
he had evidently long been needing and 
waiting to be helped. 

Some time after this, I addressed, on a 
Sunday evening, the students in one of our 
great universities. At the close of the ser- 
vice a student came up to me, calling me 
by name. It was that young man. He 
reminded me gratefully of our talk as we 
drove to the station that winter's morning. 
45 



UnDtviDual TKUotft 

His resolve of then had never wavered. 
He was well along in his course to the 
Christian ministry. In that ministry I 
hope that he endeavored to reach the 
one person near him by a timely word for 
Christ, as a more important and more 
hopeful work for Christ than a general 
appeal, however earnest, to a whole con- 
gregation. In any event, it was in that 
very way that he was won. 



When God brings us alongside of one 
whom we may help, or may feel a respon- 
sibility for, we are not to consider the ob- 
stacles, or difficulties, in the way. God 
will take care of them. Nor are we to be 
hindered by religious or denominational 
differences that seem to stand between us 
and him. The question is not whether he 
is a Roman Catholic, or a Jew, a Muham- 
madan, a Mormon, a Maronite, or an infidel. 
But the one question is. Can we evidence 
to him, in such a way as to impress on 
him, and to deepen his sense of their 
46 



B XLtavciiriQ Companion 

preciousness, the surpassing love of God 
and the blessed fulness of the spirit of 
Christ ? We are not to risk the repelling 
of him by making prominent the things 
wherein we differ ; but we are to approach 
him at the one "point of contact/' that 
from a connection at that point the electric 
current of sympathy may quiver to the 
extremities of his very being. 

In my limited experience with humanity 
I have had occasion to meet and converse 
as to personal reHgion with individuals of 
every one of the above-named religions, or 
non-religion, as well as with many others ; 
and I have never found our differences a 
real barrier to our converse or to the cor- 
dial recognition of our real heart sympathy. 
" Every heart is human," and God's love is 
suited to the need of every human heart 
Our duty is to follow God's lead, nothing 
doubting. 

One winter Sunday morning, in a 
country place in Eastern Massachusetts, I 
found myself a guest in the home of the 
47 



UnDtviDual TKHorft 

superintendent of a Sunday-school, at the 
anniversary of which I was to speak in the 
afternoon. In the forenoon of that day I 
was to address a congregation several miles 
from my present stopping-place. My host 
was to send me over, in his home team, for 
my forenoon appointment. Accordingly I 
found myself, that very cold day, tucked in, 
under a heavy robe, in close quarters, in 
the buggy, with the Irish driver. It was 
evident that that man was just then the 
'* every creature '* in the world for me to 
teach the gospel to, and I had no right to 
expect a blessing on my labors for the rest 
of the day if I failed in my duty to| him 
while on my way to my next appoint- 
ment. 

To begin with, I told my seat-mate 
whither and why I was going. This was 
to indicate my confidence in him. Then I 
said, as showing my interest in him and his 
standpoint : 

" You are a Catholic, I suppose." 
" Yes, sir," was his reply, with a tone 
48 



a XLx^vclim Companion 

that seemed to indicate a conscious barrier 
between us. 

I at once spoke of several Roman Catho- 
lic bishops and priests with whom I was in- 
timate, and whom I valued, and then asked, 

" Have you a Catholic Church in the 
village?" — which we had just left 

*^ There is no church there yet, sir. But 
a priest comes over once in four weeks, and 
says mass." 

" When is the next time for his coming?" 
I asked. 

" He's there to-day, sir." 

"Then Tm keeping you away from 
mass. How sorry I am for this ! " 

" Oh ! it's all right, sir. Fm glad to go 
with you, sir." 

We were on the same plane by this 
time. It was now my duty to improve 
this advantage. And I began: 

" You say you're a Catholic ; are you a 

good Catholic ? Do you honestly love 

God, and trust your blessed Saviour, as you 

are taught, by your church, is your duty?" 

49 



** I'm afraid I'm not a good Catholic, sir. 
Fm afraid I do not do my duty/' 

What better start could you ask for an 
earnest talk with a nominal Protestant, if 
he were known to be cold and indifferent, 
or a backslider, and you wanted to arouse 
him to deep and intense feeling in the truth 
of truths ? At this starting-point I pressed 
home the truth : 

" My friend, when we think of what the 
blessed Jesus did for us, how he left his 
glorious home in heaven, and became a 
babe in a manger to begin with, and then 
toiled on here and suffered for years, and 
was despised and rejected of men, and was 
crucified and died, in proof of his love for 
us, and of his Father's love, in order that 
we can be saved, is it asking or expecting 
too much of us that we should show our 
gratitude in the little things that Christ 
asks of us ? " 

"No, sir, it is not/* 

And of this sacred theme we talked 
together pleasantly, on that carriage seat, 
SO 



B traveling Companion 

that Sunday morning, until we reached our 
destination. My new host, a clergyman, 
welcomed me to his home, while he di- 
rected the driver, with his horse, to the 
stable. On entering the parsonage, I said 
to the pastor that, as the day was very 
cold, I should be glad to have the driver 
invited into the kitchen out of the cold. 
Accordingly, he went to the barn to invite 
the man in. Returning, the pastor told me 
that the man said he wished to go to 
the church to hear the gentleman preach 
that he had just brought over. 

As I rose in the pulpit, I saw my seat- 
mate of the morning facing me in a pew. 
What he had heard from me about his 
Saviour, and about his duty to that Sa- 
viour, had apparently sharpened his appe- 
tite for more. I confess that some of the 
words of my address that morning were 
for that one hearer, rather than for the 
body of the congregation. Then, as at 
many times before and since, one person 
was more to me than many persons. As, 
51 



UnDiviDual morft 

at noon, we drove back together, our con- 
versation was again on the theme of 
themes, with fresh comments on phases of 
it about which I had talked, in his hear- 
ing, from the pulpit. 

On thinking the day*s work over at 
its close, I realized, not that a Protestant 
and a Roman CathoHc had found much 
that they could talk about together to 
their mutual spiritual profit, but that we 
two, who had met together as seat-mates 
on that cold Sunday morning's ride, might 
have been profited by the talk, even had 
we been two Presbyterian elders in confer- 
ence in revival time. " Go, and do thou 
likewise/ 



3faitbfulnes0 to a 3fellow*«Boar&er 

According to Oriental thought and cus- 
tom, one with whom you "break bread," or 
with whom you sit at meat, is, by that very 
fact, in covenant with you, and you have 
sacred duties toward him that must not be 
shirked or evaded. Yet many a Christian 
in a Christian community will sit at the 
same table with another, as a fellow-boarder, 
for weeks or months, without knowing 
anything of his religious or spiritual views 
or wants. Both will talk freely on ordinary 
subjects, but the subject of chief impor- 
tance is not named or considered. Is this 
right? Will any Christian say that it is? 
Is it right toward either party? How 
much is lost, on both sides by such a 
course ? 

For a long time I and my family lived at 
a boarding-house in a New England city. 
53 



InDivlDual TOorft 

There was, during that period, a season of 
special religious interest, or a general revival, 
in that city. There sat at the same table 
with us a gentleman and his wife, who, as 
we knew, were not confessing Christians, or 
church-members, and had never expressed 
to us any particular interest in the revival 
movement in the city. One noonday I 
suggested to my wife that we ought to 
speak to our table neighbors personally on 
the subject, and urge them to surrender 
themselves to Christ. As she agreed with 
me as to our duty, I proposed that while I 
would go up to the gentleman's place of 
business and have a loving talk with him, 
she should seek out the wife in her room, 
and plead with her for Christ. This was 
agreed to. Then we knelt together and 
asked God's blessing on our efforts, and on 
those in whose spiritual welfare we were 
interested. 

The gentleman was a bank officer. I 
called there just after bank hours, knowing 
that he would been be disengaged. As I 
54 



3fattbfulne66 to a jfellows=:ffioarDet 

asked him for an interview, he invited 
me into the directors' room, and closed the 
door. When I spoke of my loving interest 
in him, and of my purpose in calling, he 
burst into tears, and said that he was so 
glad I had come. Then he told me how 
he had longed, day after day, for some one 
to speak to him on this subject. When 
men came in who were prominent and 
active in the prayer-meetings, he had tried, 
in vain, to lead the conversation to the 
point of a personal word, but had always 
failed. How adroit some Christians are in 
avoiding the subject of personal religion in 
business places and in business hours ! I 
found this man longing to be helped into 
the kingdom, and glad to learn the way. 
That was an ever-to-be remembered con- 
versation for Christ. 

When I went back to the house, at the 
close of the afternoon, my wife told me, 
with a cheerful face, of her experience. 
After my leaving her, as she was preparing 
to go to the room of the wife she had on 
55 



Hn&tvi&ual TOlorft 

her heart, there was a knock at her door. 
As she opened the door that wife came in, 
and, bursting into tears, she asked if her 
friend wouldn't help her to Christ. She 
had longed to be spoken to by some one, 
and now she could bear this no longer. 
The two wives went on their knees to- 
gether, and they rose with glad and grate- 
ful hearts. 

That husband and wife soon stood up 
and confessed their faith together, as they 
connected themselves with the church. 
They were active for Christ in all the years 
until they entered into rest. And their 
children were prominent and useful in 
Christ's service after them. 

One winter, some time after the Civil 
War, I passed a number of weeks in a 
Southern city, with a young friend who 
was necessitated to be there for his health. 
All this time we were at a well-filled board- 
ing-house. Most of the persons there were 
those whom I then met for the first time. 
A young gentleman who sat just opposite 
S6 



3Faitbtulne60 to a jFellows=J8oart)et 

me at the table, and with whom I naturally 
came to have a speaking acquaintance, was 
a person whose habits of life and ordinary 
occupations were obviously different from 
mine, so that our sympathy would not be 
promoted by conferring over these. In- 
deed, I learned, from the proprietor of 
the house, that when he understood that 
a New England army chaplain was com- 
ing to the house as a boarder he wanted 
to leave the house on that account, and 
was only prevented from doing so by the 
crowded state of that winter resort. 

This certainly did not present an attrac- 
tive opening for personal religious conver- 
sation. Yet I had learned that God gives 
us opportunities and responsibilities, in this 
line, which are of his choosing rather than 
of ours ; so I waited for signs of God's 
leading. Meantime I endeavored to show 
to my table-mate that we had things in 
common that were to be recognized and 
enjoyed. To win his confidence to me 
was a duty, if I would hope to lead him 
57 



UnDiviDual TKDlorft 

toward Christ. Yet the weeks passed on, 
in the enjoyments and occupations of a 
crowded Southern hotel life, without any- 
single opportunity of my being with my 
friend apart from others. 

Finally the day of my departure was at 
hand. After my last dinner at this house, 
I went to my room, regretting that I had 
never said a word for Christ to one in 
whose welfare I was interested, although I 
had sat at the same table with him, day 
after day, for weeks. I remembered my 
life-resolve, and felt that I was not living 
up to it in this case. It did not satisfy me 
when I proffered to my heart the excuse 
that I had never been alone with him, nor 
had had a fitting occasion for conference. 
Was it not worth while seeking and secur- 
ing an occasion, when the interests of an 
immortal soul were involved ? 

I spoke of the matter to my room-mate 

and companion, for whose health I was at 

the South. I suggested tl^t perhaps it 

was my duty to go to the room of my fel- 

58 



ffattbtulnees to a J'ellow:sJ8oarDet 

low-boarder that very afternoon, and say a 
word to him for Christ. He might, indeed, 
take offense at it, but, again, he might not. 
Was it not worth while taking such a risk 
for a soul's sake, and for Christ's ? The de- 
cision was made. We kneeled together in 
our room, and asked God's blessing on my 
undertaking. Then I arose and started 
out. The room of my fellow-boarder and 
his wife was but just across the hall from 
ours. Yet it was not an easy task to ven- 
ture on knocking at that room door, in the 
fulfilment of my purpose and my duty. 

At my knock, the young gentleman 
whom I sought opened the door, and in- 
vited me in. His wife sat on a sofa. They 
welcomed me cordially, and when I told 
them that I purposed leaving the place the 
next morning early, they expressed regret, 
saying that our intercourse of the past few 
weeks had been very pleasant. I replied 
that I had enjoyed knowing them, and that 
it was because of my growing personal in- 
terest in them that I had now called at 
59 



tnDiviDual Wiox\\ 

their room. Then I explained that my joy 
in Christ's service was the greatest posses- 
sion of my Hfe, and that because I longed 
for my fellow-boarders to have that joy, I 
had come to say so. The gentleman said 
that it was kind of me to say this, and that 
he had been thinking that he would like to 
know more about the religious belief I had, 
so that he might share it. Would I tell 
him what books he should read, in order 
to learn about this ? 

I replied that I could mention good 
books for him, but that I should much 
prefer to talk on the subject with him 
personally in detail. 

'^ It would be very pleasant," he said, ''to 
put myself under your guidance, if you 
would instruct me." 

'' But I leave town early to-morrow 
morning," I said, ''and I am cut off by 
this from helping you." 

On his asking where I was going, and 
learning that I was to visit another part of 
the South, he responded that he would be 
60 



f attbfulnese to a ffellows::fiSoarDer 

glad to accompany me. On his asking his 
wife if that would be agreeable to her, she 
expressed her willingness to make the 
move, and it was arranged accordingly. 
Early the next morning the boarder who 
had wanted to leave that house when he 
found that a clergyman was coming there, 
with whom he could have no sympathy, 
finally left the house with that clergyman 
in order that he might be personally in- 
structed in the rehgion which he had come 
to desire as his own possession. Surely 
God was leading. And God ever leads 
those who are willing to be led, even 
though they often follow reluctantly ! 

There was no opportunity for a quiet 
conversation during the first day, while we 
were constantly within hearing of others 
who were about us in the crowded public 
conveyance on which we journeyed. In 
the early evening, we found ourselves at a 
small hotel, where we were to make a rest 
for a while. My companion was different 
from any one with whom I had ever con- 
6i 



UnDiv^iDual TOorn 

versed personally on the theme of themes. 
He had not been, while a child, under the 
religious training and influences with w^hich 
I was most familiar. Hence there seemed 
to be no such common basis for a prelimi- 
nary understanding as I had been accus- 
tomed to find. Yet this necessitated a 
coming down to first principles, which, 
after all, had its decided advantages in 
such a conference as this. 

" My friend, would you like to be saved? " 
I asked at the start. 

"Indeed I w^ould," he replied. 

"Do you think that you can save your- 
self?" 

" I certainly do not," was his response. 

"Do you know of any Saviour to be 
trusted except one?" 

" I do not," he said heartily. 

"Well, now," I said, "there is no neces- 
sity of your reading any books on the sub- 
ject, to learn the way of salvation. Let me 
see, here and now, if you are willing to be 
saved by the one Saviour in his own way. 
62 



3faitbfulnc66 to a jfeUows=:fi3oarDer 

Understand that I do not make any condi- 
tions or requirements of conduct or prac- 
tice, in order for you to be saved ; but I 
will ask you this question, in order to ascer- 
tain your attitude toward this whole sub- 
ject. Suppose that you were to find that 
Jesus Christ wanted you to refrain from 
drinking, from smoking, from card-playing, 
from theater-going, and from much that 
accompanies these things, would you give 
them all up, or would you feel that there 
were some of these things that you could 
not refrain from?" 

My friend thought the matter over with 
evident seriousness, and then he gave this 
intelligent answer : 

"Well, Mr. Trumbull, there are some of 
those things that I might have different 
views from yourself about; but if I were 
convinced that Jesus Christ wanted me to 
refrain from any one of those things, or 
from them all, I should be willing to con- 
form my conduct to his wish.'* 

''That's all that I want to know," I said. 
63 



''I lay down no requirements. I want him 
who is to be your Saviour to be your 
guide. Now just go to your room and 
kneel down before the Lord, and tell him 
how it is. Tell him that you need a Sav- 
iour, that you do not know any Saviour 
other than himself, and that you want him 
to save you. Tell him that you are willing 
to put yourself into his hands, that you will 
conform your conduct and course to his 
wishes, and that you want to trust him." 

Pressing each other's hands, we parted 
for the night. Of course I prayed for him, 
but I prayed trustfully. When I met him 
the next morning I asked him if he had 
done as he promised to. As he said that 
he had, I inquired if he felt that the Saviour 
had accepted him. 

" I don't suppose that he has yet," was 
his reply. 

" Why not ? " I inquired. 

*' I don't suppose that Jesus Christ would 
accept me at once," he said. 

^'Well, then the responsibility is with 
64 



3fattbtulne60 to a 3FeUow:sa3oar&et 

him. I don't see that you have anything 
more to do about it," was my reply. 

*' What do you mean ? *' he asked, with a 
surprised look. 

'* Why, if you have gone to the only 
Saviour there is, and have offered yourself 
to him, telling him you are willing to 
shape your course by his directions, and 
he is not ready to accept you, but wants to 
wait awhile, there seems to be nothing else 
for you to do." 

" Do you mean," he asked, "that I ought 
to believe that Jesus Christ at once accepts 
me, and that I can fully trust him now as 
my Saviour ? " 

" That certainly is the way I understand 
it," I said. " I can't see any other way. It 
seems to be that or nothing." 

"Then Til do that," he said earnestly, 
and he evidently meant what he said. 

From that hour he was an earnest, devoted 

follower of Christ, as I was familiar with 

him for precious years and in different 

spheres. He became a close student of the 

65 



InWriDual Timorft 

Bible. He and his wife together made an 
open confession of their new faith, and con- 
nected themselves with a prominent church 
in New York City. They became active 
in mission-school w^ork, and in that field he 
devoted his trained business mind to per- 
fecting methods and systems of work, so 
that he was known widely throughout the 
country as a leader and guide in that field. 
He became, after a while, prominent as one 
of the most influential workers, and director 
of other workers, in the entire country. 
Then I was, indeed, glad that God would 
not let me leave that winter-resort boarding- 
house without going to the room of that 
fellow-boarder and telHng him of my desire 
for his spiritual welfare. 

In his personal habits and conduct he 
became strict and careful, in the line of 
our talk that evening at the little hotel, 
where we stopped on the way from our 
winter resort. When I, later, told Dr. 
Bushnell, to whom I had introduced the 
young gentleman, of that conversation, and 
66 



jf aitbtulneae to a ffellow=BoarDer 

of the outcome of it, the good Doctor 
said, characteristically : 

"That shows how much easier it is to do 
a big thing than a little thing. If you had 
begun to discuss with this man, at that 
time, any single habit or practice, you 
might never have got beyond it. You 
would have been stranded on the first bar- 
rier. But to ask him to trust the whole 
thing to his Saviour, and be guided by him, 
was the better way. If one is right at the 
center, he is likely to get right at the cir- 
cumference." 

What a Saviour we have, both to trust 
and to tell others of; and how good it is 
to work for him ! 



One Sunday I passed with a near rela- 
tive. There I met a gentleman whom I 
had never seen before, but who was con- 
nected with my relative. I sat with him at 
the table, and we had pleasant conversa- 
tion. In the evening this gentleman was 
out at a church service, and the lady of 
67 



1lnDix>iDual TKHotft 

the house was suffering with a headache. 
I urged her to retire, while I would sit up 
and close the house after the visitor came 
in. As I did this, I sat by the sitting-room 
fire, on the cold winter night. When the 
visitor was in, and the house was closed, we 
still sat together there. 

He spoke of the service that he had at- 
tended, and he was evidently much im- 
pressed by the sermon. 

"You don't often hear a sermon like 
that, especially from such a minister,'* he 
said. "The minister brought us right up 
face to face with the Judgment Seat, and 
there he left us. There were no soft words 
to ease us down, such as, ' But I trust this 
is not for you, my brethren/" 

Then, as if soliloquizing, as he sat there 
looking into the fire, he added : 

" I tell you that, in the great day, we 
who go over to the left hand will not feel 
very kindly toward the men who have 
glossed this thing over, when they had a 
chance to tell us the plain truth." 
68 



t 



jFaitbtulne00 to a 3fellow:=J5oarDer 

The impressed man was much older than 
myself, old enough, perhaps, to be my 
father; but he had been brought to my 
side in a condition of mind to need help ; 
and I was there to speak for Jesus. It was 
not a question of seniority, nor of long 
acquaintance, to be considered by one who 
represented the Eternal. Laying my hand 
lovingly on his knee, as he sat by my side 
looking thoughtfully into the fire, I said : 

'' My friend, what do you mean by speak- 
ing of * we who go over to the left hand ' ? 
You belong on the right hand, and you 
ought to recognize this. The judge is 
your Saviour. You ought to trust him 
fully as such." 

" I suppose I ought to," he responded. 

"Well, do you not?" 

"I can't say I do." 

At this I drew my chair around so that 
I could look directly into his face, and I 
said earnestly, feeling the full force of my 
words : 

" This is God's doing, and you must rec- 
69 



UnDiviDual morft 

ognize it. God has brought us to this 
house to meet for the first time in our 
lives. He has planned it so that you 
should go out to that evening service, and 
hear that impressive appeal. And now, 
while all others in the house are asleep, you 
and I sit here facing the question of ques- 
tions for your soul. I cannot leave you 
until you settle it. I speak for the Saviour 
when I urge you to commit yourself to 
him for now and forevermore." 

Then, reaching out my hand, I said: 
"My friend, you realize what all this 
means, and its importance. Now, prom- 
ise me that this night, before you sleep, 
you will, on your knees, tell your loving, 
longing, waiting Saviour, that you've de- 
layed this thing altogether too long, but 
that you won't do so any longer. Tell him 
that you trust him because he is the Sav- 
iour, and you are one whom he wants to 
save. Give me your hand on this, my 
friend, and then go to your room and do 
what you know to be your duty.*' 
70 



3fattbtulne60 to a 3fellow==:©oarDec 

My companion evidently felt that it was 
a crisis hour with him, and he could not 
evade the sense of this. My hand was out- 
stretched to him. For some time he said 
not a word, but I saw that he was quiver- 
ing with intense emotion. Meanwhile I 
was praying in my heart for a blessing on 
him in his conflict of soul. Then, with a 
convulsive movement that shook his strong 
frame, he put out his right hand and 
clasped mine as though it were for life. I 
realized that he had given himself to his 
Saviour. Rising, I asked God's blessing 
on him, and bade him good-night, and we 
parted. I went to my room for the night, 
and to pray for him, and he went to his 
room to pray for himself 

Before he came downstairs in the morn- 
ing I left for my home. I never saw him 
again. Before the day closed he left that 
house for his home. By a severe railroad 
accident, on his way home, he was fatally 
injured, and soon he was with the Saviour 
to whom he had trusted himself. A 
71 



UnDiviDual moxH 

younger brother of his was an office-bearer 
in one of the Fifth Avenue churches in 
New York. When he learned that the 
loved brothei had thus committed himself 
to the Saviour while he was yet in life and 
strength, he was indeed rejoiced and grate- 
ful. And we thanked God together. 



72 



VI 

Morft for Single Souls in Uxrtvs Xife 

In army life, as in quiet home life, the 
way to reach the many is to reach the one. 
The best way to get one's ear is to have 
his ear alone. Although in my three years 
of army life I was rarely away from the 
many, I found, there as elsewhere, that my 
best work for Christ was not in public 
address, but in watching for opportunities, 
or in improving unlooked-for occasions, 
when I could speak from my heart to 
another's heart, without being heard by 
another, even if others were near us. All 
my army-life experience tended to convince 
me that this was the best way to work for 
Christ with souls. 

My first experience under fire was on a 

winter Sunday in Eastern North Carolina. 

We had bivouacked for the night in an 

open field, when starting on a raid into 

73 



InDtx^iDual morft 

the enemy's country. As we rose in the 
early morning to make ready for a march, 
the blazing camp-fires, on every side, throw- 
ing their lurid light on the stacked arms, 
and the moving soldiers, with the hum of 
conflicting voices, made a weird and im- 
pressive scene; and as I heard for the first 
time the command, to a company near 
where I stood, " Load at will," followed by 
the ring of the rammers in the steel rifle 
barrels driving home the cartridges, I was 
thrilled by the sounds as never before. 
Realizing, as I did, that when those rifles 
were discharged it would be in deadly con- 
flict, and that before the day should close 
some of the brave men near me would 
probably be in the presence of their Maker, 
I had a sense of responsibility for souls as 
never before, yet as often afterwards. 

Moving about among the fire-lit groups, 
and looking for a man standing by himself, 
I came upon a soldier, a bright Connecticut 
boy, with whom I had often spoken in 
camp. He was arranging his belt at the 
74 



TOorft for Single Soute in Brm^ %itc 

moment. I spoke to him cheerily of the 
activities of the hour, and of the possibiH- 
ties of the coming day. Then I asked him 
tenderly if he had committed himself trust- 
fully to his Saviour. 

** Ah, Chaplain ! This is no time to 
think of such things. It would unfit me 
for a fight if I got to thinking about my- 
self just now." 

" It is always a time, Sergeant, for think- 
ing about Him who is able to care for us 
in every hour of life or of death, and who 
loves us more than we can ever love him. 
But if you don't want to talk about this 
now I shall come to you when we are 
back in camp, if we get there together 
once more ; and then, certainly, I can have 
a good talk with you about this matter, for 
I want you to do your duty.'' 

Our raid was a successful one, and soon 
we were back in camp once more. I looked 
up my young sergeant friend, and told 
him that I had come to renew our conver- 
sation of the morning after our first night's 
75 



bivouac, on the recent raid. I had a plain, 
earnest talk with him. He promised to go, 
in need and trust, to his Saviour, and com- 
mit himself to him for life and death. Af- 
ter a while, when we were in St. Augustine, 
we organized a regimental church, and 
this young sergeant was the first one to 
stand up and make a confession of his 
Saviour, in the presence of his regimental 
comrades and others. Later he connected 
himself with his home church in Connecti- 
cut, on my certificate of his confession of 
faith while in army life in the South. 

That experience with my first young 
convert in the army encouraged me in my 
individual work with individuals there. I 
saw that it were better to make a mistake 
in one's first effort at a personal religious 
conversation, and correct that mistake 
afterwards, than not to make any effort. 
There can be no mistake so bad, in work- 
ing for an individual soul for Christ, as the 
fatal mistake of not making any honest 
endeavor. How many persons refrain from 
76 



Morn for Single Soul6 in Brmi^ Xife 

doing anything lest they should possibly 
do the wrong thing just now ! Not doing 
is the worst of doing. '' Inasmuch as ye 
did it not, depart from me/' is a foretold 
sentence of the Judge of all. 



When first I joined my regiment in 
North Carolina, I found there a young 
lieutenant, whom I had known as an ac- 
tive, earnest Christian worker in his Con- 
necticut home. As I was looking up the 
members of my new charge, I called on 
him in his tent, and said something of my 
hope to have his help in work for my 
Master. 

" No, no. Chaplain,'' said he, '' I've given 
up all that stuff. I know now that there's 
no truth in it, and I don't want to hear a 
word on the subject." 

** You are not saying now what you be- 
lieve. Lieutenant." 

" What do you mean, Chaplain ? " 

" I mean that I know you well enough 
to understand that what you said and did, 
77 



lnDi\?iDual morn 

for years, in your faithful Christian work 
and in your Sunday-school teaching, has 
not been given up by you out of your in- 
most heart. You can talk this way to me 
now, to try to stiffen up your courage of 
resistance ; but when the camp is quiet, 
and you are alone on your bunk in the 
darkness, you would never talk in this way 
to your God, who you know is near you 
always." 

*'Well," he said, somewhat more gently, 
*'I don't want to talk about this subject, at 
any rate." 

'' But I must talk about it,'' I said. 'It's 
very real to me. And Fm here because 
of my belief I love you too dearly to 
refrain from speaking to you, and urging 
you to come back to your old love and 
faith and duty and joy." 

Weeks passed on. When I saw the Lieu- 
tenant in his tent I would show him that I, at 
least, hadn't lost my faith; yet I refrained 
from provoking any discussion on the sub- 
ject. He seemed to be grateful for my in- 
78 



TKHorft tor Single Souls in Brmig Xife 

terest in him, and he never again gave an 
expression of his unbelief, nor did he say 
that which would jar on me. I tried to 
reach him by indirect means, in talking 
about former interests and persons con- 
nected with our work together for our 
common Master. In this way, at times, 
the truth we had both then held dear 
would come into prominence; but no 
word of unpleasant difference was a result. 

After a little there came on a battle in 
which our regiment lost severely. Several 
temporary hospitals were opened in small 
dwelling-houses in different parts of the 
field of action. As I was occupied in one 
of these hospitals, I heard that my lieu- 
tenant friend lay wounded in another. As 
soon as I had opportunity, I went over to 
see him. His right leg had been ampu- 
tated near the hip. He lay on a cot among 
many wounded. Looking up as I ap- 
proached he said cheerily : 

"The Lord has got me, Chaplain. I 
wouldn't serve him with two legs, so 
79 



UnWviDual morft 

he took away one. But now I'll be more 
of a man with one leg than I was with 
two.'' 

Then as I spoke warmly of my sympathy 
with and interest in him, he told of his 
experience and feelings. 

'^As my leg went out from under me, 
and I felt I was gone, I said, 'The Lord's 
got me, and I'm glad of it' You were 
right. Chaplain, that day you came to my 
tent first, I never really gave up my belief, 
or had any rest in my life trying to live 
without faith. And now I believe I shall 
live nearer the Lord than ever, and have 
more comfort in him." 

He was confident that he should soon be 
restored to health, and that he should use 
his new strength in the Lord's service. I 
had pleasant interviews with him as he 
talked of his plans in Christ's service, and 
he gave convincing evidence of his Chris- 
tian love and faith. But the shock of the 
amputation was severer than he at first sup- 
posed, and he soon sank away to his final 
80 



IKIlorl^ tor Single Soute in Brmig %itc 

rest. The prodigal had returned to his lov- 
ing Father's home. 



Army-transport life gave many an op- 
portunity of personal work with souls, as 
well as did public preaching. Along the 
Atlantic coast the Civil War demanded 
frequent and varied use of transports. At 
one time in North Carolina our division 
made a raid into the interior of the state, 
cutting itself off from its base of supplies, 
and exposing itself to capture by a force 
of the enemy in its rear. It seemed, both 
to us and to the enemy, that we were hope- 
lessly hemmed in ; but, at the close of the 
day in which we had accomplished the 
main object of our raid, we turned directly 
toward a river, and on reaching its banks 
found a number of small vessels waiting 
there to receive us, in accordance with the 
plan of our commanding general. These 
transports had been brought up to this 
point so that we might board them, and 
quietly slip down the stream during the 
8i 



night, thus flanking the force that had 
come into our rear. 

Boarding those vessels and getting under 
way was an exciting movement. If the 
enemy discovered our position in season to 
attack us before we were fairly started, 
there was little hope of escape for us. The 
skipper of the craft on which our regiment 
embarked was a character. He felt the 
responsibilities of the hour, and he gave 
evidence of this in his superabundant pro- 
fanity accompanying every order which he 
issued. I had never heard such abounding 
and varied oaths as he poured out in the 
half-hour from the time we began to come 
on board till we were fairly afloat and 
were moving down the stream. Of course, 
then was no time to begin preaching to 
him. I could merely watch and study 
him. But that I did, with real interest. 

When, at last, all was quiet, and the 

evening had come on, and the old skipper 

was evidently gratified with the success of 

the movement so far, I accosted him with 

82 



TOorft;;^tot Single Soula in Uxm^ %itc 

complimentary words as to the skill and 
energy he had shown in his command. 
This opened up a conversation, in the 
course of which he told of other exciting 
experiences he had had in other parts of 
the world. I listened attentively, and he 
saw that I was appreciative and sympa- 
thetic. Presently he spoke of a particularly 
perilous time he once had on the coast of 
Africa. 

" Ah, Captain ! I suppose you had 
charge of a slaver then," I said. 

Seeing that he had " given himself away," 
he replied, with a quiet chuckle : 

** Yes, Chaplain, I've been up to purty 
nigh ev'rythin', in my time, 'cept piety." 

" Well, Captain," I responded, '' wouldn't 
it be worth your while to try your hand at 
that also before you die, so as to make the 
whole round?" 

"Well, I suppose that would be fair, 
Chaplain." 

The way was now open for a free and 
kindly talk. As we stood together there, 
83 



UnDiviDual TOorft 

on the vessel's deck, going down the 
stream by night, we talked pleasantly and 
earnestly, and I got at the early memories 
of his boyhood life in New England. 
Then I knew I was near his heart. By 
and by, all of us made ready for the night. 
There was but one berth in the cabin. 
That was the captain's. Our officers were 
to sleep on the cabin floor. The captain 
said to me : 

" Chaplain, you turn in in my stateroom. 
There's a good berth there." 

''No, no, thank you. Captain/* I said. 
" Let the Colonel take that." 

" It isn't the Colonel's room ; it's mine, 
and I want you to take it." 

" It would never do," I said, " for the 
Colonel to sleep on the floor while I slept 
in a berth. But I thank you just as much 
for your kindness, Captain." 

I lay down with the other officers on the 
cabin floor. While I was asleep I felt my- 
self being rolled around, and I found that 
the captain had pulled his mattress out of 
84 



Mork for Single Souls in %im^ Xifc 

his berth, and laid it on the floor, and he 
was now roUing me on to it. I appreciated 
the gruff kindness of the old slaver-skipper, 
and my heart was drawn the closer to this 
new parishioner of mine. Nor did I lose 
my hold on him when we were fairly at 
New Berne, at the close of this trip. I was 
again with him in the waters of South Caro- 
lina, and he came again and again to our 
regimental chapel - tent on St. Helena 
Island to attend religious services there. 
I saw that I had a hold on him. 

One week-day he called at my tent, 
having a brother skipper with him, whom 
he introduced to me, and then fell back, 
leaving us together. He joined my tent- 
mate, the adjutant, and stood watching 
while I talked with the new comer. He 
told the adjutant, with a string of oaths, 
that his foolish friend didn't believe there 
was a God, so he'd " brought him over 
here for the chaplain to tackle." It was 
fresh evidence that life was stirring in him, 
and that therefore he wanted another saved. 
85 



^nDivlDual moth 

When the war was over, I heard of that 
slaver-skipper in his New England seaport 
home. At more than threescore years of 
age he had come as a little child to be a 
disciple of Jesus; he had connected himself 
with the church, and was living a consis- 
tent Christian hfe. He was honestly trying 
his hand at '' piety " before he died, and so 
was completing the round of life's occu- 
pation. For this I was glad. 



In some instances I was. not sure of the 
result, or gain, of a special conversation in 
the army on the subject of personal religion, 
until long afterwards, but the doing of 
duty never depends on our knowledge of 
the gain or results. A letter came to me 
from the good parents of a Connecticut boy 
in our regiment. They w^anted me to 
reach him, for Christ, if I could, while they 
were praying for him and for me in their 
home. I took this as laying a special mis- 
sion on me, and I sought him out at once. 

I found him in our regimental hospital, 
86 



IQlork for Single Soule in Uxm^ %itc 

under medical treatment just then. Al- 
though there were other patients in the 
ward, I could sit down by his cot and be 
practically alone with him. As I sat there 
on a Sunday afternoon I talked of his 
Connecticut home, with which I was 
acquainted. I spoke of the Sabbath and 
its influences, as it was in the country in 
Connecticut, in contrast with what it was 
in our Southern camp life. As I talked I 
took his hand in mine and stroked it in 
tenderness. 

I said nothing of his parents' letter to 
me, but I spoke of their loving interest in 
him, and of the certainty that such parents 
were praying constantly for their loved son 
in the army. I urged him to commit him- 
self to their Saviour as his Saviour. As I 
talked this way I saw the tears dropping on 
both our hands, and I knew his heart was 
touched. After he was out from the hos- 
pital, I saw him while about his duties in 
the regiment, and I had pleasant talks with 
him on the subject of which I had spoken 
87 



InDivtDual Timorft 

in the hospital, but I could not get him to 
commit himself to a positive avowal of his 
surrender and his trust. 

But the time came when the young sol- 
dier was at his home again, when the war 
was over. Then he wrote, thanking me for 
my interest in him, and telling me that be- 
cause of it he was going to stand up on 
a Communion Sunday, in the old home 
church, where his father was a deacon, and 
confess his faith in that father^s Saviour. 
Then he went back to that Sunday in the 
hospital when I stroked his hand and his 
tears fell on our hands. 

"After you'd gone out that day. Chap- 
lain,'* he said, "I cursed you because of 
what you'd been doing and saying. I was 
afraid that some of the other fellows had 
seen me weeping; and I 'said you were 
mean to take advantage of a fellow when 
he was sick, but now I'm so glad you 
did it." 

Again he wrote other letters in the same 
grateful strain. Then he wrote me that he 
88 



Morft for Single Soula in Hrmi^ %ltc 

had named his first little boy after his 
chaplain, and that he wanted me to have 
an interest in that boy. 



One evening, as I was returning to my 
evening quarters, I saw the gleam of a faint 
light through a low shelter-tent in our regi- 
mental camp. It was long after " Lights 
Out " had been sounded, and I stooped and 
scratched at the tent entrance as a signal 
that I wanted to enter. A call, ** Come in,'* 
responded, and I crept in. A soldier, seated 
on the ground, was writing home by a small 
tallow candle, and I knew that any soldier 
was in an accessible mood when thinking 
of his home. So I talked with him about 
home. A sister, a devoted Christian, was, 
he said, very dear to him. She had urged 
him to yield himself to Christ, and he was 
writing to her that very evening. 

I felt that the occasion was a peculiar 

one, and I must improve it. I urged him 

to a decision at that very time, and I would 

not consent that he should postpone it. I 

89 



UnmviDual TOorft 

saw that all he needed was to come to the 
act of decision, and there might never be a 
better moment for this with him than now. 
So there I remained with him, pleading for 
Christ until far into the night. I knew that 
there would probably never be ''a more 
convenient season " than this. And his 
strong New England mind evidently took 
in this fact. He was considering the mat- 
ter well. Finally, he voluntarily knelt with 
me beneath that shelter-tent, and deliber- 
ately consecrated himself to the Saviour's 
care and service. At this I rejoiced with 
him, and thanked my God and his. Then, 
giving my hand to him, I went on to my 
quarters with a happier heart. 

It was but a little while after this, that, 
in an engagement in which we had a part, 
he was killed ; and as I said earnest words 
of prayer over the grave in which we 
buried him, and as I looked down into his 
dead face, I was glad that I waited that 
memorable night until he knelt by my side 
and gave himself up to his loving and 
90 



iKHorft tot Single Soul0 In Brrns Xife 

waiting Saviour. And when I wrote to 
that faithful and praying sister, and told 
her of that midnight hour of his deliberate 
consecration, her sister heart was com- 
forted and gladdened, and she wrote me 
grateful words for my interest in her loved 
brother, feeling that her many prayers for 
him had been answered. 



I was in the habit of inviting soldiers to 
come to my tent, or other quarters, to talk 
with me of personal religion. Sometimes 
they seemed to gain little help by such 
conversation. At other times a few words 
were evidently sufficient for their needs. 
One young soldier, from an adjoining regi- 
ment, came in anxiety as to his spiritual 
condition. I tried to make his duty and 
his privilege plain, but I did not seem to 
succeed. I prayed with and for him, but 
he did not find peace. He said that he 
must now return to his regiment, but he 
would come and see me again. 

As he went out, I handed him a copy of 
91 



^nDiviOual morn 

a little Soldier's Hymn-Book, which was 
the only reading-matter I had for distribu- 
tion. When I met him again, his face 
was bright with the cheeriness of glad 
hope. As I asked him about himself, he 
replied : 

" You tried to make it plain to me. Chap- 
lain, but I didn't get any help. But, as I 
came away from your quarters, I opened 
that little hymn-book, and I read : 

* Just as I am, and waiting not 
To rid my soul of one dark blot, 
To thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot, 
O Lamb of God, I come ! ' 

And then it was all clear to me." 

After the war, I was in Tremont Tem- 
ple, when Moody was back there for the 
first time after having left Boston for Chi- 
cago. That soldier convert waved his 
hand to me across the hall. I found, after- 
wards, that he was now in active Christian 
work in that vicinity, and that on that ac- 
count he was attending that convention. 
When I knew this, I thanked God that 
92 



'Moth tor Single Souls fn Brmi^ %itc 

Charlotte Elliott's hymn had helped him 
more than I could to see the way of peace. 



There were strange characters, as well 
as strange experiences, encountered in my 
army Christian work. The army brought 
all sorts of persons together, and I had to 
become acquainted with and interested in 
them all. While at St. Augustine, Florida, 
in the winter of 1863-64, a part of our 
regiment did garrison duty at the old 
Spanish coquina fort, with its bloody 
memories and its weird legends of former 
occupants. I was accustomed to hold 
Sunday-school services each Sunday after- 
noon, and also mid-week evening services, 
in the Httle chapel opposite the main en- 
trance of the fort. Just outside of that 
chapel there was a pile of rusty cannon, on 
which men would sometimes loll while we 
were having services inside. And as I 
moved about the fort I had many a talk 
with men whom I rarely met so familiarly 
elsewhere. 

93 



UnDiviDual OTorh 

One day, in walking through the fort, 
my attention was drawn to a strange face 
glaring through an iron-barred opening of 
a dungeon door in the southwestern cor- 
ner of the casemated walls. It was the 
most repulsive face I had ever seen. Low- 
browed, coarse-featured, dark-complex- 
ioned, with small black eyes under shaggy 
eyebrows, and thick sensuous lips, it 
seemed like a cross between a Digger In- 
dian and a New Zealand native, with the 
worst peculiarities of both. The expres- 
sion was one of low cunning, with a mix- 
ture of hate and derision. It was an un- 
human face, yet the man who bore it was 
evidently one of my parishioners, or he 
would not be where he was. 

"Who are you, my friend?" I said. 
" Where do you belong ? " 

He answered in a low, gruff voice, as if 
he were resenting an attack. 

" I belong to the Tenth Connecticut." 

"You belong to the Tenth Connecti- 
cut!" I said. 

94 



•©florft for Single Soute in Btm^ Xife 

''Why, then Fm your chaplain, and Tve 
got an interest in you/' 

As I kindly questioned the man, I found 
that he had been most of the time since his 
enlistment in confinement for insubordi- 
nation, and therefore I had not met him. 
After a brief talk I left him. Soon he was 
released from confinement, and was again 
with his comrades. I saw him occasionally, 
and spoke to him kindly, but I did not 
look upon him as a hopeful case in com- 
parison with others, and had comparatively 
little to say to him. It seems, however, 
that I had gained more of a hold on him 
than I was disposed to recognize. 

After a while, we left Florida for Vir- 
ginia. As we moved up along the coast 
in a crowded transport, this man came to 
me in the throng, and said softly : 

*' Misser Chaplin, I want to talk to you." 

" Well, Fm always glad to talk to you," 
I said. " But where can we go to talk ? 
Let us lean over the steamer's rail. That 
is our only place to talk by ourselves." 
95 



As we leaned there together, he told me 
his strange, pathetic story. 

" Misser Chaplin, you 'member when 
you talked to me at the dungeon door. 
You spoke kind to me. You said you's 
my chaplin. I never forget that, Misser 
Chaplin. Fm a rough feller; I never 
knowed much. I suppose I'm human, 
that's about all. I never had no bringin' 
up. Fust I knowed o' myself I was in the 
streets o' New Orleans. Never knowed a 
father or mother. I was kicked about. I 
came North and 'Hsted in army. I've had a 
hard time of it. My cap'n hates the very 
groun' I tread on." 

Then with a chuckle and a leer, as he 
thought of his Ishmaelitish life, he said: "I 
did worry my cap'n. And he hated me. 
Ten months with ball and chain ! A hard 
time of it ! But what you said at the dun- 
geon door's all true. And what you said 
in prayer-meetin' is all true." 

" Prayer-meeting ! " I said. " I never saw 
you in prayer-meeting." 
96 



Wiovli tor Single Soula in Brmig %ltc 

*'No, I was jus' outside, on those old 
cannon. And now, Misser Chaplin, I 
want to do right. Misser Chaplin, I sup- 
pose we's goin' into a fight, and I want to 
do my duty. They say I'm a coward. 
IVe never been in a fight, but I want to do 
my duty." As a fi-iend of mine, to whom 
I told this story, said, " The only religious 
instruction this man ever got was through 
eaves-dropping at a prayer-meeting.'' 

Then in a voice strangely tender in con- 
trast with the first gruff utterance which I 
heard from him in the dungeon, he said : 
*^ Misser Chaplin, you're the only man who 
ever spoke kind to me. If I get killed I 
want you to have my money. And if I 
get killed, won't you have it writ in the 
paper that Lino died for his country?" 

That was another noteworthy incident 
in my personal Christian work for others. 
We reached Virginia. We were in a fight. 
Lino bore himself so bravely that his cap- 
tain, whom he had worried so long, called 
him out before the entire company, at the 
97 



close of the engagement, and commended 
him for his bravery and good service. 
Hearing of this, I looked him up after the 
fight was over, and congratulated him on 
his well-doing in active battle. 

*^ YouVe done bravely, I hear, Lino, and 
Fm glad of it.'^ 

" Yes," he said, with a softer chuckle 
than before. ''They called me a coward, 
but I tried to do my duty. 'Tain't always 
the frisky ox that's at the far end of the 
yoke.'' 

That long friendless man showed, in his 
way, his intention of doing what God would 
have him do. Who of us has better im- 
proved his opportunities ? 



God's estimates are not as man's esti- 
mates, and we have reason to rejoice that 
this is so. He loves us not for what we 
are, but for what he is. How often it is 
that we fail to exert ourselves in behalf of a 
soul for Christ because that soul seems to 
98 



TKnorft Cot Single Soul6 in Brm^ Xite 

us not a hopeful subject, either on account 
of his morals or of his intellect. 

Among the recruits picked up in Con- 
necticut, for the sake of the bounty, in the 
later years of the Civil War, were some 
men who would not have been accepted in 
the army on their merit. One such man 
in our regiment was below the physical 
standard, and he seemed beneath a fair 
average of intelligence. He was a laughing- 
stock in the regiment. He was not com- 
petent for a soldier's duty. He was unable 
to drill. So he was put at a menial duty, 
and became a byword and a butt. I do 
not think that it occurred to me, at that time, 
that he was a proper subject for religious 
conversation. I am speaking of what was, 
not of what ought to have been. Possi- 
bly the confession of my lack will suggest 
to some one else the impropriety of such a 
failure. 

One day, in St. Augustine, as I was 
walking on the parapet of the old Spanish 
fort, I came upon this man. No one else 

LcfC. 99 



was just then in sight, and it seemed 'as if 
it would be taking nothing from others if 
I said a word to him. So I stopped to talk 
with him. Calling him by his regimental 
nickname, I asked : 

'' Do you ever pray ? ** 

" I say ^ Oure Farther/ *' was his thick 
and drawling response. 

" Who is your Father? " I asked. 

That question he couldn't answer. He 
had only, by some one, been taught by 
rote to say the words of that prayer. Then 
I took him as a httle child, — as, indeed, he 
was a little child in intellect ; and I told 
him of God as his loving Father in 
heaven, who would be glad to have him 
pray to him. And I told of Jesus and his 
love. He listened like a glad child who 
was taking in a child's lesson, and he 
seemed to comprehend what I was saying, 
as well as any of us can comprehend 
these truths. From that time I had a new 
interest in that soldier boy, and he seemed 
to be showing signs of awakened life. He 
loo 



TDGlorft tor Single Soule in Brm^ %itc 

welcomed my interest in him, and he re- 
sponded gratefully to every word of coun- 
sel or suggestion from me. I reproached 
myself that I had not been readier to esti- 
mate him as God estimates every soul 
whom the Saviour loves and died for. 

After the war was over I was, one Sun- 
day evening, to make an address in a Con- 
necticut city. As I entered the outer door 
of the prominent church, a bright-faced 
young man stepped forward to greet me, 
calling me by name. As I looked the sec- 
ond time, I saw that it was that anything 
but hopeful soldier whom I first talked 
with on the parapet of the old Spanish fort 
in St. Augustine. On inquiry, I found that 
he had made a public confession of his 
faith in one of the prominent churches in 
that city, and that he was witnessing a 
good confession. He was a regular attend- 
ant in the Sunday-school. As I looked at 
him, I hoped that I had been of some ser- 
vice to him ; for I was sure he had taught 
me a good lesson, — a lesson that I want to 

lOI 



InDtviDual TOork 

pas-j on to others. Any soul that Jesus 
loves IS worth our best work in its behalf. 



One day, in Virginia, in the later months 
of the war, as I passed the regimental 
guard-quarters, I saw a man tied up by 
his thumbs at the '' wooden horse " outside 
those quarters. It was no time to talk 
with a man in that position ; but I quietly 
noted the face, with the intention of speak- 
ing to the man afterwards. Those were 
the days of substitutes and "bounty- 
jumpers " in lieu of native-born volun- 
teers, and severe punishments were more 
in vogue than before. This man was a 
substitute from over the ocean. He had 
been enlisted under a false name by a rela- 
tive in this country, and, with his im- 
mediate associates as they were, he had 
little inducement to do well. 

Not long after, when I had given notice 
at the chapel tent that on Tuesday even- 
ing I should be glad to see any soldier at 
my tent who wished to talk as to personal 

I02 



TOorft for Stngle Souls in Brmig %itc 

religion, this substitute soidier came to my 
tent on the evening named. I welcomed 
him heartily, and referred to my special 
invitation for that evening. He replied, 
with some embarrassment, that he had not 
come at that call, but merely to lialk with 
me on another matter. I asked if his 
special business could wait a little, while I 
spoke of the matter to which I had de- 
voted the evening. He said that the other 
thing could wait. Then I told him of my 
personal interest in him, and urged the 
surrender of his life to his Saviour. His 
response profoundly impressed me as dis- 
closing the workings of his inner life. 

" I'm a very strange man. Chaplain ! 
Now that I'm talking with you, I realize 
the truth of all you say, and I'm not a 
hypocrite in agreeing with it all. But I'll 
go out from your tent, and it will not be 
an hour before I've forgotten all about this 
talk, and am just as wicked and as wild as 
ever. And I'll not think of religion again 
until, perhaps, I'm on guard some night. 
103 



UnDtvlDual IRIlorft 

Then when Vm all by myself, and the 
camp is quiet, as I'm passing back and 
forth on my beat, it will all come back to 
me again, and 111 see just what a sinner I 
am, and how like a fool I've acted ; and 111 
resolve that, if only I live till morning. 111 
be a very different man. And I'll think 
that way until the * relief comes round, 
and I go to the guard-quarters again. 
And then — will you believe it. Chaplain ?— 
it will not be five minutes before Tm swear- 
ing and scoffing as if Td never had a seri- 
ous thought in my life. O Chaplain ! Fm a 
very strange man, sir ; a very strange man ! '' 
As this my soldier parishioner, whose 
strangeness consisted mainly in his excep- 
tional understanding of the workings of 
his own heart, talked thus with me of his 
moral struggles and need, I was drawn to 
him by an interest that never intermitted 
while he lived. He came to be a brave 
soldier. When the war was over, he be- 
came an active worker in a prominent New 
England church. He took an exception- 
104 



Morft for Stngle Soute in Brmis life 

ally high stand in business circles, in politi- 
cal life, in military organizations. He was 
instrumental in leading many who had 
gone astray back to ways of uprightness ; 
and when his earthly life course had ended 
his memory was precious in the minds of 
many who were inspired and aided by his 
example and efforts, as a specimen worker 
for Christ won to this work by a timely 
word of invitation and guidance. 



Army life continued far into the days of 
peace. The intimacies and affections of 
active service did not end when soldiers left 
the battle-field for their old home, or for a 
new one. The revival of personal relations 
when the chaplain met members of his 
regimental charge under peculiar circum- 
stances often enabled him to say a word for 
Christ to an old soldier, which had back of 
it the force of sacred war memories. 

A regimental "pioneer corps" did pecu- 
liar army service, and its members often 
exhibited high qualities of courage and 
105 



daring. They would go before our column 
to cut a way through forest or bushes, or 
to construct a bridge or road, sometimes 
under the enemy's sharp fire. To fill their 
place and do their work was to win honor 
and regard from officers and men. Thev 
would quickly construct a shelter for an 
officer, which gave him protection and 
comfort, as he stopped for a night or a 
week. In doing: this thev showed rare skill 
and taste, and made themselves indispen- 
sable to the command as a whole. 

Some months after the war I was an- 
nounced to speak, one Sunday evening, in 
a prominent church in Western Massa- 
chusetts. As I rose in the pulpit I saw in 
the congregation a well-remembered ser- 
geant in our ''pioneer corps." He was one 
of the bravest of the brave, always prompt 
and ready in whatever he had to do. 
Hearing that I was to speak, he had come 
to listen to his old chaplain. The pastor 
in whose pulpit I stood told me aftens'ards 
that this veteran soldier had a good name 
io6 



morli tor Single Soufe in arms aLife 

in the community, although he was not a 
church-member. At once I felt that I must 
reach him for Christ The chaplain must 
be faithful that night to the pioneer corps 
sergeant. 

At the close of the service the brave old 
"pioneer'' came forward to give me greet- 
ing. After a talk about our campaigning 
together, I asked him if he wouldn't go 
with me for a talk to the parsonage, where 
I was to pass the night. This he was 
glad to do. By the pastor's consent I 
had a room where we could be by our- 
selves. In a free talk with my old com- 
rade, I found him ready and glad to com- 
mit himself wholly to Christ. He only 
needed to know what to do, and to be 
helped to do it. When I asked him if he 
was ready and willing to take this step 
now, he assured me that he was. At this 
we went on our knees together, and the 
brave soldier of country became a trustful 
soldier of Christ. As I knew of him after- 
wards, I felt that he was one of many who 
107 



In&lvtDual IKaotft 

needed only the being enlisted to be ready 
for active, persistent service. 



It was with officers as with men. The 
intimacies and associations of camp and 
campaigning brought persons together in 
never-to-be-forgotten relations. Years after 
the war, men who had been in close com- 
panionship as fellow-officers in active ser- 
vice would be closer together in an hour or 
two of renewed intimacy than fellow-civil- 
ians could be in years of association. Every 
old soldier knows how this was. 

On one occasion, I met, in civil life, a 
fellow-officer, whom I honored and looked 
up to. In a strange place, we were in 
crowded quarters, where there was not a 
separate bed for each. In consequence, we 
two, who had slept on the field under the 
same blanket, shared the same hotel bed. 
Our army experiences made each of us more 
willing to consent to this arrangement than 
if we had not been in the army. My 
io8 



Timorft for Stngle Souls in armig Iffe 

kneeling in prayer, before I lay down, 
opened the way for a close and loving 
talk on the precious relations which are 
between those who are one in Christ, — a 
union closer than that of fellow-soldiers. 

My officer friend, although reverent to- 
ward Christ and his salvation, was not 
ready to express his personal trust in the 
Saviour. As I tenderly urged him to com- 
mit himself to the one Saviour, he con- 
fessed that he was not ready to do so, be- 
cause of a reason that he deemed sufficient. 
As we conversed that night on the subject, 
he told me that if a certain state of things 
should ever exist, he would be ready to 
take the step, as he was not now. That 
night's conversation and my officer friend's 
conditional promise were stored in my 
mind, and he was a subject of my prayers. 

As the months passed on, the state of 
things which he suggested as likely to 
change his view as to his personal duty 
came about. When I knew of this change 
in affairs, I had his promise in mind, and 
109 



in the early morning I presented myself at 
his home. 

*' I told my wife that the chaplain would 
be up here to see me, after this/' was the 
greeting that he gave me, as I entered his 
home. What if I had failed to remember 
my promise at a time like this ? 

That brave officer was ready to do his 
duty. He openly took a stand for Christ. 
His influence over others was great. He 
became known throughout the land as a 
Christian. If I had never been the means 
of winning any other to a confession of the 
Saviour, I should feel that all my labors 
with individuals were more than repaid by 
the result of that one evening's talk with 
this soldier of country and of Christ. 



no 



VII 

Mfnnfng tbose fHlet in Cburcb an& 
3Bil)le Class 

Where you have many persons to hear 
you, as where you have only one, it is the 
single hearer, or the one individual with 
whom you converse, that is the hopeful 
subject of Christian effort. It is the eye- 
to-eye and heart-to-heart intercourse that 
tells for Christ with a soul. It has often 
seemed to me that there is about so much 
good going out from a speaker, at any 
one time, in behalf of souls. This good is 
divided among the hearers present. If 
there are twenty hearers, each can have 
his one-twentieth. If there are a thou- 
sand, each has only a thousandth. When 
there is but one, he takes the whole. This 
thought IS an encouragement to a preacher 
when he has but a small audience. 

In a Bible class that I had the privilege 
III 



In Cburcb anD Mblc Claes 

of conducting for years, I counted more on 
my talks with individuals after the class 
hour was over than on all my words to the 
class as a whole, during the school session, 
stimulating and pleasant to me as was this 
latter exercise. One summer Sunday morn- 
ing, as I passed out from the Bible class room 
toward my home, I overtook a young lady 
who had been an attendant in the class, for 
some weeks, with a lady who was a regular 
member. This visitor to the Bible class 
was not a member of our church congre- 
gation, nor did she belong to a family that 
was; but I was alone with her as we walked 
away from the room that Sunday morning, 
and therefore I must say a word tor Christ 
to her, whether it seemed a fitting time or 
not. *' In season and out of season " is the 
rule for us. 

As we walked, we talked of the Bible 
lesson of the morning. Every Bible truth 
is like a many-sided crystal, — turn it which 
way you will, there is one facet that sends 
the light directly to your eye. So, that 

112 



InDivtDual lIHlorft 

morning, we found that a talk about the 
Bible lesson of the day brought us to a 
talk about our personal relations to the 
Saviour. In this talk she seemed much 
interested, and as we came opposite my 
house, where I would ordinarily have 
stopped, I felt that I had no right to leave 
her, and I kept on with her to her home. 
As she told me afterwards, she had longed 
for this talk, and when we approached my 
house she feared I would leave her, al- 
though she was not ready to end the con- 
ference. How often is this the case ! 

That Sunday morning walk was a cri- 
sis hour in her life history. She gladly 
yielded herself to the Saviour, and devoted 
herself to his service. She connected her- 
self with the church of which I was a 
member, and she became a Sunday-school 
teacher of rare devotion and efficiency. 
She not only herself loved Christ, but she 
faithfully represented Christ to others. 
One after another of the boys in her class 
was won to Christ's love and service : and 
113 



tn Cburcb anD muc Claea 

those who were under her instruction and 
influence now rise up to call her blessed. 
What would my work as a leader of the 
class as a whole have amounted to, that 
Sunday morning, without my having that 
personal religious talk with that one visit- 
ing young lady? 



There came into that Bible class, as a 
member, a gentleman with whom I had 
been very pleasantly associated in another 
part of the country in former days. His 
wife came with him to the class. Yet I 
knew nothing of their personal religious 
views, save that, while they were members 
of our congregation, they were not mem- 
bers of our church. I felt that it was not 
enough to counsel or urge them and oth- 
ers of the class collectively to submit 
themselves to Christ. Speaking to an in- 
dividual as an individual is the way to win 
a soul, not addressing a congregation of 
persons in the hope that some individual 
will think that he, rather than everybody 
114 



UnWviDual motft 

else, IS addressed by the speaker; so I 
determined to reach these two individuals 
outside of the Bible class room. 

They lived quite a distance from my 
home, in another part of the city. Thither 
I went on a week-day afternoon. I told 
them why I had come, and how deeply 1 
was interested in their welfare. I urged 
their committing themselves to the Sav- 
iour. We kneeled and unitedly sought 
God's blessing on us, as God saw our need. 
That was a decisive hour with them both. 
They were glad to have it so, and I was 
glad that it was so. 

Both became teachers instead of passive 
learners. They were soon active in church 
and Sunday-school work. The gentleman 
became a leader in the Sunday-school, and 
a prominent and honored office-bearer in 
the church. If that Bible class had accom^ 
plished nothing more than winning thai 
gentleman and his family to their present 
sphere of Christian activity, it would more 
than have repaid me for all that I have 
115 



InDiviDual MocR 

done in connection with it. I did that 
good work by God's blessing, through 
only going one week-uay afternoon to 
have a face-to-face talk with those two for 
Christ. And all my best work for souls 
seems to have been done in just that way. 



A graduate of a school of science, who 
was a pronounced agnostic in his attitude 
toward religious truth, having heard of 
this Bible class and its discussions, asked 
a friend if he might, though a disbeliever in 
the Bible, be an attendant of the class. Being 
assured of a cordial welcome he came, and 
was interested in the discussions, and, as a 
result, became a firm believer in the Bible, 
which was the basis of all these discussions. 
Of course I had, meantime, repeated eye-to- 
eye talks with him on the subject, outside 
of the class ; for it is indeed rare for any 
abiding impression to be made by words 
spoken and heard in public unless the 
truth is applied, and an acknowledgment 
ii6 



In Cburcb auD JSible Claes 

of it secured in a face-to-face talk with the 
individual hearer. 

This man said afterwards that he was first 
touched by my saying to him one day, " I 
am praying for you every day." Before a 
great while he who came in as a non- 
believer stood up in his home church and 
confessed his faith in his newly found 
Saviour. Then he too became a Bible 
teacher, faithfully leading others to the 
Saviour, whom he was thenceforward glad 
to trust and represent. 



One Sunday afternoon a well-known 
graduate of one of the prominent Ameri- 
can universities outside of Philadelphia, 
who had given up his early religious views, 
but who had come to question in his mind 
whether his non-belief was sufficient for 
him, came into our Bible class room. At 
the close of the exercise he came to me 
and asked if he might have a talk with me 
about the Bible lesson of the afternoon. 
117 



InDix^lDual TKIlork 

At this I invited him to my home to pass 
the evening with me. 

At my home he told me that he had 
known nothing of the Bible class before 
the day he came into it. But as the Bible 
lesson of the day was presented that after- 
noon in an unconventional way, he had 
said to himself, " There is a man who can 
help me. I'm going to ask him if he will." 
We talked freely that evening. We prayed 
together. That was the beginning of a 
close friendship of years. He soon came 
to confess his faith openly. 

He grew steadily in knowledge and love 
and influence. To-day he is a prominent 
clergyman in the denomination with which 
he is connected, and is widely known for 
his active ser\ace, and he is leading many 
to enjoy the Christian faith, about the re- 
ality of which he, for a time, doubted. His 
coming to that Bible class that afternoon, 
his being impressed there, and my having 
the opportunity of speaking to him for 
Christ, were clearly of God. Well is it for 
ii8 



Hn Gburcb anD Mbic Claes 

us if, when God gives us such an opportu- 
nity, we do not fail to do our simple part, 
and thus share the blessing. 



Two sisters came to that Bible class to- 
gether. Then, one of them fell dead. The 
other was so much affected by her loss that 
she felt she could not come to the class. I 
attended the sister's funeral, and I ex- 
pressed hearty sympathy with the survivor, 
but at that time I had no opportunity for 
a free conversation with her. Some time 
later I saw the stricken sister in our church 
on the day of a communion service, watch- 
ing the service from the back part of the 
house. It was a snowy Sunday. I hur- 
ried round to the front door of the church, 
and joined her as she came out. 

I walked with her, in the snow, to her 
home, at a distance, and talked with her, 
by the way, quite freely. I asked her why 
she did not confess Christ as her Saviour, 
and join with his other children in the cele- 
bration of his love, instead of sitting as a 
119 



InDtviDual morft 

looker-on. She had not faced that ques- 
tion before, but now that she was asked it 
she considered it seriously. When I came 
to her home door, I stopped and asked if 
she would be ready to take this decisive 
step at the next season of communion in 
our church. She hesitated for a few min- 
utes, and then she gave me her hand in 
assurance that she would. 

On the Wednesday evening before the 
next communion service, when candidates 
for church-membership were to appear be- 
fore the church session, at the close of the 
weekly prayer-meeting, I saw that sister 
present. The appointment had slipped my 
mind, but it had not slipped hers. She 
was there, ready to confess Christ, and I 
told her that I was glad that she was so. 
Seemingly her choice for life was made, 
as her future has evidenced. 

These are merely a few illustrations, out 
of many, of the gain of personal work, or 
of individual work with individuals, for 
Christ, in a single sphere of my varied ex- 

I20 



TLn Cburcb an& SSible Class 

perience. I have not been as faithful as I 
should have been in this. I have at times 
failed to act and to speak when it was 
my duty ; but the blessing that God has 
granted to my imperfect labors may stimu- 
late others to do more and better, and thus 
to have far richer results to rejoice over. 
I pray that it may be so. 



One who was in the congregation, but 
not yet in the Sunday-school, I came to 
know in very pleasant relations, and there- 
fore I felt a measure of responsibility for 
him. He was influential in the commu- 
nity, and on this account I was the more 
desirous that his influence should be on 
the right side. 

I sought him in his boarding - house 
home, and I told him frankly of my wish 
that he would commit himself to the Sa- 
viour, and be an open and avowed follower 
of his, outspoken in his service. In con- 
versation with him, I found that he had 
never been accustomed to pray as a child, 

121 



UnDiviDual TKHorft 

and therefore, naturally, not in later years. 
Few of us realize how much we owe, 
through life, to the lessons and habits and 
influences of our childhood, or how diffi- 
cult it is for us to supply this lack in ma- 
turer years. I hardly ever realized that 
truth as I realized it in my talk with this 
man. When I urged him to kneel and 
pray, he responded: 

*' You do not know what you are asking 
of me. You ask me to get down on my 
knees and speak into the air, to talk to no 
one, for no realized purpose. That may 
seem a natural thing for you to do, but for 
me it would seem a most unmeaning thing, 
if not, indeed, a bit of mockery. I cannot 
dokr 

This was in the early days of the tele- 
phone. I asked him : 

"Have you ever talked through the 
telephone?" 

"Oh, yes!" he said. 

"You know I have one in my house, 
and another in my office. The telephone 

122 



Hn Cburcb auD Mblc Glaes 

is a great convenience to me and a great 
comfort. If you had never spoken through 
a telephone, and should come into my 
house, and see me talking into a hole 
against the wall, while I held a peculiar 
tube to my ear, you might, in surprise, ask 
what I was doing. If I said I was in lov- 
ing converse with a friend at a distance, it 
might seem unreasonable to you, if not a 
bit of mockery. 

*^ If, after this, you should go into an- 
other house, and should see a valued friend 
acting similarly, and he should give you 
the same answer, and this should happen 
half a dozen times over, with friends whom 
you respected, would it still seem un- 
reasonable or foolish ? '* 

" No, it would not.'' 

" How is it about the spiritual tele- 
phone ? Are there not as many to testify 
to the value of that as of the Bell tele- 
phone ? " 

" I suppose there are.'' 

" Well, now, my friend, won't you try 
123 



InDiviDual morft 

it? You can have connection from this 
room. But you must be willing to try it 
in good faith. When you speak, you must 
give attention as you listen for a response. 
It is not enough for you to call into the 
mouthpiece opening without having the 
tube at your ear. It is a blessing to be 
on the spiritual telephone circuit." 

This was a new way of looking at the 
prayer question. Soon my friend was on 
the telephone circuit. He had connection 
in his own room. He was making calls 
and getting responses. He would no 
longer consent to be without the connec- 
tion. By and by he was an active mem- 
ber of the church, he was a teacher in the 
Sunday-school. There is a gain in reli- 
gious instruction while one is very young, 
but it is well to begin to learn the best 
things at any age, when you first have an 
opportunity. 



124 



VIII 

Ualft about personal Morft at 
mortbfielt) 

For nearly forty years after my first re- 
solve to be faithful in this line of personal, 
or individual, work for Christ, as God gave 
me opportunity and power, I do not think 
that it occurred to me that my methods of 
Christian effort, for the good of single souls, 
were in any way exceptional or peculiar. The 
circumstances of my being won to Christ, 
and- of my beginning to work for him, 
made this method seem to me the natural 
and reasonable way; and I simply kept 
at it, year after year, without considering 
specifically whether others worked in the 
same way or not. But after nearly two- 
score years of this experience, a circum- 
stance forced on my mind the truth that 
other Christians needed to be told that 
this was the better way for them, as well 
125 



as for me, to work for Christ and for 
souls. 

I was at Northfield one summer, attend- 
ing the notable Students' Conference con- 
ducted by Mr. Moody. Several hundred 
students were there from twoscore or more 
colleges of America and Great Britain. But 
I was more interested in one student, whom 
I had gone thither to accompany, than in the 
hundreds of students who had been drawn 
thither by its general attractions and ad- 
vantages. I am always more interested in 
the one than in the hundreds. When I 
am thinking of one to love and to live for, 
and to influence and to benefit, I can give 
my whole attention and all my efforts to 
that one. And my whole being is needed 
for my best work in whatever is worth 
doing and that I am set to accomplish. 

I had had a part in the conference in 
several of its earlier days, and I was now 
about to return home, leaving the young 
friend, whom I had taken thither, in sur- 
roundings that I was confident he would 
126 



Bt lllortbtlelD 

enjoy. To Mr. Moody's urgent request 
that I would remain another day, and 
again address the students, my reply was 
that I was not needed. He had helpers 
enough. The evening before I was to 
leave, as I sat on the platform just back of 
Mr. Moody, young G. B. Studd, of Cam- 
bridge University, who was one of the famous 
cricketers, was making an earnest address. 
In speaking of his early Christian life, he 
mentioned that when, on one occasion, he 
thanked a lady who had done him a kind- 
ness, he had spoken to her direct words for 
Christ. In thanking him for these words, 
she said that never before had any one 
spoken such a word to her. At this, Studd 
said that he asked himself why none of her 
friends who were friends of Christ had ever 
been faithful to her spiritual welfare. 

As Studd said this, I leaned forward and 
whispered to Mr. Moody: 

''You have been asking me to stop 
over another day, and address the students. 
I have thought I couldn't, but Studd's talk 
127 



InDix^fDual TRIlork 

has stirred me. Now, if you'd like it, V\l 
stop over to-morrow night, and talk about 
* Personal Work for Souls.' Only you 
must promise me that my words shall not 
be reported in the papers, for I shall, per- 
haps, use real names, as illustrations, that 
had better not be in print.'' 

Mr. Moody was glad to have the 
arrangement made, assuring me that the 
reporters would do as he wished, and that 
he would ask them not to report my re- 
marks. That night, and the next day, I 
thought and prayed over the matter, in 
preparation for the next evening's meeting. 
Up to that time, I do not remember to have 
ever, at any time or place, spoken on this sub- 
ject, or on this method of Christian work. 
Its importance had been in my mind simply 
for my own guidance. Of course, I had no 
notes, or memoranda, of former thoughts or 
experiences in this line of Christian effort. 
But the theme grew in prominence and im- 
portance, as I thought of it hour by hour ; 
as, indeed, any phase of Christ's work grows, 
12a 



as we thoughtfully consider its magnitude 
and worth. 

In the next evening's talk I told how I 
had been moved to this address by Mr. 
Studd's narrative of his experience in 
speaking for Christ to a single soul. I re- 
lated how I had been, as it were, won to 
Christ by a word from one who had for 
years deferred speaking that word when 
he knew that he ought to speak it; and 
how I had, since then, made it my life pur- 
pose to speak for Christ to an individual, as 
being a more hopeful and important work 
for souls than addressing a multitude. I 
emphasized the fact, in addressing that large 
gathering of students, that I wanted to ad- 
dress them individually, instead of collec- 
tively ; that I wished to have each one feel 
that I was speaking to him alone, as if no 
one was there except just he and myself. 
And, as next best to this as a fact, I wanted 
each student present to press home the 
truth of the evening to some other single 
student. 

129 



UnDiviDual morft 

A number of the incidents and experi- 
ences related in these pages were included 
in the address of that evening ; but, in ad- 
dition, there were^ instanced several promi- 
nent Christian workers whom those stu- 
dents had reason to know well, who had 
been won to Christ, or guided in his ser- 
vice, by just this kind of personal Christian 
endeavor. Of course, such particular in- 
dividuals were not to be instanced in print, 
then or now. But the mention of these 
cases, at that time, gave emphasis to the 
truth that this is the way to work for 
Christ. 

The facts of the address seemed a sur- 
prise to all, perhaps more to myself than 
to any one else; for I had, long before, 
come to look at this truth, that one is 
more than many, as almost a matter of 
course, — a spiritual axiom, as it were. As 
the students were warmly interested in the 
subject of the evening, they began to mani- 
fest their interest by signs of applause, as 
was their wont, when it concluded. Mr. 
130 



m mortbtlelD 

Moody, in his intense way, putting up his 
hand, and shaking it deprecatingly, said : 

"Hush! This is no matter for applause. 
It's too solemn a truth. Brother Studd, 
will you lead us in prayer ? " 

Then Mr. Studd prayed, and we all had 
to pray with him. The heavens seemed to 
open above us, and we were face to face 
with the Lover and Saviour of souls. I 
think we all realized anew what a duty and 
privilege it is to represent that Saviour in 
pleading with a soul that he loves, and that 
he wants us to bring to him. Even as I 
was, at that hour, broken down with strong 
feeling under the power of that inspired 
prayer, I felt that he who had such "power 
with God for men" could surely "have 
power with men for God." That evening, 
because of its experiences and accompani- 
ments, marked an era in my life for which 
I have never ceased to be grateful. 



But there was a practical result of this 
considering of the subject of the evening. 
131 



UnDtviDual TKHorft 

The leaders of the various colleges and 
universities represented in the Conference 
at once invited their fellow-students to meet 
in their several recognized rallying-places, 
and take action in the direction of personal, 
or individual, work for Christ in their own 
field of labor. So, before they separated 
for the night, they had pledged themselves 
to labor as individuals with individuals in 
bringing souls to Christ, in addition to all 
other ways in which they had worked, or 
would work. That certainly was a gain. 

A single incident of that evening showed 
how ready God is to open the way for our 
efforts if we will be ready to enter it for 
his service. Mr. Studd and some of his 
Cambridge associates came to me, after the 
meeting, and asked my assistance in behalf 
of one of their countrymen who was with 
them. He was a young man standing 
high in his university. His father was 
eminent in the nation. Hence the influ- 
ence of the young man would be great 
according as he used it for or against the 
132 



m IflortbflelD 

right. He had, as yet, no interest in the 
Christian work that had drawn to North- 
field some of his personal friends. He had 
come thither because of his intimacy with 
some of them, but he had little sympathy 
with them in their interest in what was 
represented by the Northfield Conference. 
They had sought in vain to win his interest 
in these things on the voyage over, and 
now they had come for my help. 

" Give us your help. Dr. Trumbull,'* said 
Mr. Studd. " It would amply repay us for 
coming to America if we could only win 
this man to Christ." 

"My dear friends," I said, *'I cannot help 
you. I have no special power in winning 
souls. I have merely told you this evening 
of my habit of speaking a word for Christ 
to those whom God puts under my influ- 
ence, or for whom, in some way, he gives 
me a responsibility. This young man is 
not one of that sort. I have merely met 
him here as one with you. All I can say is 
that I will have your request in mind, and if 
133 



InDiviDual TKHorft 

I meet him so that I have a right to speak 
to him I will not fail to use the opportu- 
nity." 

"Well, we shall be praying for you and 
him, and I trust that God will open a way 
for a blessing/' 

It was then nearly midnight. I left the 
Auditorium and went across the campus to 
the hall in which I had my room. As I 
went up the steps of that hall I saw a young 
man standing in the shadow. He stepped 
forward to meet me. It was the young 
Cambridge student of whom we had been 
speaking, and for whom his friends and 
associates were now praying. As I greeted 
him cordially, he said : 

"Dr. Trumbull, I was over in the Audi- 
torium and I heard your address. And 
now I want your help. When are you 
going away ? When can I have a talk with 
you?" 

"Fd gladly talk to-night with you," I 
said, "but I am not going away until to- 
morrow noon." 

134 



m UlortbffelD 

So it was arranged that I should meet 
him as I came out from the breakfast room 
early the next morning. Bidding him good- 
night, I went to my room to thank God and 
to pray to God. As I came from the 
breakfast room I found the ''man greatly 
beloved '' awaiting me. Together we 
sought a retired spot, under the trees, at 
some distance from the buildings. There 
we had a plain, free talk. He was entirely 
ready to take the step of submission to 
Christ, and of entering his service. As we 
kneeled together in the open air, and sought 
God's blessing on the decision then made 
and the new life course then entered on, I 
felt that the incident was one of God's 
planning and leading to, and which surely 
had his blessing. 

I was glad to report to those who had 
sought my help this sequel to their request 
of the evening before. And when I left them 
all, that noon, I was confident that the new 
disciple would be lovingly and faithfully 
cared for and aided in the subsequent days 
I3S 



at Northfield and when all returned to their 
English homes. Some weeks later I had a 
letter from that young man, speaking most 
gratefully of that interview under the trees on 
that morning in Northfield — that "heaven 
on earth," as he called it, and as any place 
where God is can fairly be called. God is 
always better than we anticipate, if we are 
ready to work for souls in his behalf. 



13^ 



IX 

®tber Ualfts about personal Worft 

Northfield is a unique field of influence. 
Its audience stands all by itself. It is not a 
miscellaneous gathering, but an assemblage 
of picked Christian workers, — of those who 
are excellent in spirit, who want to be 
profited themselves, and to help others to 
profit, and who ask only directions as to 
how they can best do this. I had often 
said that talking to an ordinary audience 
is like sowing seed broadcast, but that 
talking to a Northfield Students' Confer- 
ence is like handing out select packages 
of choice seed to planters in the spring of 
the year. This truth was never impressed 
on my mind more positively than in con- 
nection with my first talk at Northfield 
about the duty and advantages of personal 
work for souls, and the aftermath of that 
137 



llnM\?iDual TI3Clotk 

talk, or of that evening's distribution of 
seed among the young planters. 

I have mentioned that students of the 
several colleges and universities repre- 
sented that year at Northfield took action 
that very night to secure Christian work 
of that sort in their loved fields of influence 
and action. But this, be it understood, 
was not the end, but the beginning, of 
their activities of this sort, as stimulated by 
what they had been told of the possibilities 
of such effort. At once I found myself in 
correspondence on the subject with those 
near and far, and I was asked to visit dif- 
ferent colleges in order to help to arouse 
students there who were not present at 
Northfield when the subject was first pre- 
sented. Indeed, I soon realized that the 
young planters whom I had met at North- 
field were already doing many times as 
much for Christ as I had done in years, and 
for this I was grateful to the Lord of the 
harvest. 

Soon after this I was invited to be pres- 
138 



©tber tlalfts about pereonal MotFi 

ent at the New England Students' Confer- 
ence at Middletown, Connecticut. There 
was here, in one sense, an advantage over 
Northfield in that fewer were present, so 
that I came nearer to the one individual. 
Here for the first time I met Robert E. 
Speer, at that time of Princeton. This was 
a blessing to be grateful for for a lifetime. 
If I have not done more and better for 
Christ since then I alone am to blame. 
His personality and example ought to 
have been an inspiration and a help to 
me. I think that they have been. 

At Middletown, as at Northfield, there 
was a precious aftermath of the sowing on 
the subject of personal Christian work. 
Individuals came to me for counsel and 
suggestion as to particular cases in which 
they were interested, and concerning which 
they were determined to do their duty, so 
that I felt that my best work was done after 
I had spoken, not • while I was speaking. 
The obvious consequences for good from 
the presenting of the subject at both places 
139 



UnDtviDual TIClorft 

are still open and progressing. And thus 
it is with God's work always. The best is 
yet to come. 

After this I was invited to Princeton by 
T. H. Powers Sailer, then an undergraduate 
of the university. My first visit to North- 
field had been to accompany him to the 
Students' Conference, because of my deep 
interest in his welfare. He was ready to 
lead actively in individual work for Christ 
in Princeton, and to stimulate his fellow- 
students to such action. Here, as at other 
places, whatever I said in favor of this line 
of action was sure to be followed by fresh 
activities in good work by men who were 
prepared for better w^ork than I could do. 
My first visit to Princeton in this line was 
followed by other visits, and individual 
work for Christ was multiplied there as 
elsewhere. 

Then I was invited to spend a Sunday at 

Yale. A. A. Stagg, the Christian athlete, 

prominent in the College Young Men's 

Christian Association work, had been with 

240 



©tbet C^alKs aDout IPereonal liHlorft 

me at Northfield, and I found him ready to 
lead actively in this individual work for 
Christ in Yale. The fact that my son was 
then an under -graduate in Yale naturally 
intensified my interest in the work in that 
university. Again and again I visited Yale, 
and counseled with Stagg and others as to 
the prosecution of this work, and as to the 
case of particular individuals in whom the 
workers had become interested. And thus 
the work seemed to grow in importance, 
and the spheres of activity to multiply, 
month by month. 

There were, from time to time, different 
gatherings in Philadelphia which I was in- 
vited to address on this subject, and which 
I was glad to attend. Thus, on several oc- 
casions, I met young volunteers for the for- 
eign missionary cause, and talked the mat- 
ter over with them, answering various 
practical questions that they asked in con- 
nection with what I had said as a result of 
my own experience. Here, as at North- 
field and Princeton, young Dr. Sailer was 
141 



UnDtvtDual Timorft 

the means of my entering an open door of 
influence, and he was a leader in all that was 
done or planned for. 

An occasion of special interest to me was 
a conference, in Philadelphia, of Young 
Women's Christian Associations. This 
included representatives from Wellesley, 
Smith College, Mt. Holyoke, Vassar, Bryn 
Mawr, and similar institutions of Christian 
learning. I was invited to address these 
on the subject of personal Christian work. 
After my address I was plied with ques- 
tions, perhaps more freely than on any 
former like occasion. By these questions 
I was compelled to consider phases of the 
possible, or desirable, work that I had not 
encountered in my own experience, but that 
I was glad to think of and talk about. The 
very questions themselves, in many cases, 
gave evidence that these young women were 
roused to the importance of such work, and 
were seeking the best way for its doing. 

A few years after my first address on 
personal work, at Northfield, as prompted 
142 



©tbet ^alft0 about ipeteonal Motft 

to it by young Studd's talk, Mr. Moody 
was in Europe, in the summer, and, of 
course^ could not be present at the Students' 
Conference. He had arranged, however, 
that his place, at the head of that confer- 
ence, should be taken by John R. Mott, as- 
sisted by Robert E. Speer. These workers 
asked me to be with them in Northfield dur- 
ing the conference, and to repeat my talk 
about personal work. This I gladly ar- 
ranged to do. 

Mr. Mott, in introducing me, again, to 
the students, spoke of the new activities, in 
American colleges, of personal, or individ- 
ual, work for souls, as dating from the first 
talk on that subject from the platform 
where he stood. As there were many stu- 
dents now present who did not hear that 
first talk, he desired its substance to be 
heard by them, in order that they might be 
aroused to similar activity as their fellow- 
students were already engaged in. And 
thus it was that I came to give a second talk 
on personal work for souls at Northfield. 
143 



UnDivlDual TKIlork 

This second talk on the subject, at North- 
field, brought a fresh and unexpected gath- 
ering of spiritual aftermath, which I ought 
to profit by. Possibly because I had 
shown in my recital of experiences that I 
took a special interest in the troubles and 
needs of individuals with whom I had to 
do, some of the students who were present 
came to Mr. Mott and Mr. Speer, and asked 
whether I would probably be willing to 
hear them as to their individual spiritual 
doubts or needs, and to give them counsel 
accordingly. 

To this request I gave a glad and hearty 
response of assured welcome to all who 
would seek my counsel and aid. Of course, 
this was in the line of the work I was talk- 
ing about. One man was more than the 
many, however, to be reached. Mr. Mott 
accordingly announced, from the platform, 
the next day, that I would welcome, at my 
room in The Northfield, any student who de- 
sired my help about any phase of the Chris- 
tian life. This welcome I would gladly 
144 



©tbcr ZlalRs about IPersonal Worft 

give to all at any hour, either earlier or later, 
when the Conference was not in session. 



Just here I want to emphasize an impor- 
tant truth, that not always has its right 
place in labors for the spiritual welfare of 
souls. Seeking to win an outside soul for 
Christ is not to be counted a superior work 
to that of seeking to draw a believer closer 
to Christ, or of upbuilding in Christ one 
who is already his follower. Christ is to 
be considered, as well as those who are, or 
are to be, his followers. What is best for 
him and his cause is worth thinking of, 
in the efforts of his representatives. The 
needs of his dear ones are also not to be 
lost sight of A cup of cold water to one 
who is Christ's is to be recognized as a 
gift precious to Christ. 

This truth was impressed on my mind 
in my army life, and it is one that every 
old soldier will be prompt to recognize. 
What counted in active service was not the 
number of raw recruits, but the number of 
H5 



disciplined soldiers. Veterans, hardened 
in warfare, toughened by drill and march, 
and steadied by experience under fire, were 
not to be estimated, man for man, with 
fresh recruits just enlisted; they were often 
as ten to one. An old regiment of one 
hundred men would sometimes be valued, 
by the commander, as worth more in bat- 
tle than a new regiment, eight hundred 
strong in the ranks, which had never been 
tested, or its worth made known and im- 
proved. It was so in the days of ancient 
Israel. It is so still. Men were counted not 
by mere numbers, but by their solid worth. 
"Seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; 
every one could sling stones at an hair- 
breadth, and not miss;" these were a 
power even in comparison with *' twenty 
and six thousand men that drew sword." 
Not winning more men, but improving 
men already in service, tells most effec- 
tively. 

What is wanted in Christ's service to-day 
is " not more men, but more man ; " and it is 
146 



©tbet XTalFia about ipersonal TRIlorft 

the privilege of the believer to help to raise 
the standard, in spirit and method, of indi- 
vidual believers. Those talks with indi- 
viduals at Northjfield, on my second visit 
there, were the most interesting and profit- 
able of any talks with individuals that I 
ever had. Yet not one of these talks was to 
show a man the way to Christ. They were 
to meet doubts, and to surmount difficul- 
ties, and to decide as to the special way of 
duty. If I helped others by my words, I am 
glad. I know that I was helped in my 
efforts to help. 



I 



Occasionally a single church, in city or 
country, tries the plan of systematic visita- 
tion for the purpose of evangelism. But 
usually this work is deemed an exceptional 
method, not to be relied on as having any 
real value in comparison with "the stated 
means of grace." Yet lessons are to be 
learned by us all from some of these occa- 
sional experiments. 

At one time I passed a Sunday in the 
H7 



InDiviDual TDGlorft 

home of a superintendent of a village Sun- 
day-school in Connecticut. It was a hum- 
ble home, back in the country, and no 
member of the family seemed to have had 
any special educational advantages. Yet not 
only the spiritual atmosphere of that home, 
but its religious exercises and methods, 
were such as to command my respect, and 
to make me wish to commend them to 
others. This led me to ask how all this 
came about, and, in consequence, I learned 
this instructive story. 

The church of which this man was a 
member was an ordinary Connecticut 
church, not given to new things, but keep- 
ing on, year after year, in its tried and ap- 
proved course. But in some way it had 
been led to try the experiment of having 
every family in the congregation, or parish, 
visited by appropriate members of the 
church for religious conversation. Possi- 
bly it was in connection with the labors of 
an evangelist, but of that I am not sure. 
My host, who was now the superintendent, 
148 



Qtbcx Za\l{6 about ©ereonal Morft 

was then not a member of the church, nor 
was any one of his family. He had heard 
of this proposed movement, and as he sat 
in his home one day he saw one of the 
deacons and another church-member drive 
up to the house and get out for a call. So 
far from having any special interest in this, 
he spoke jokingly of it. 

But when the deacon was in the home 
of that man and his wife, speaking with 
them for Christ as he had never spoken 
before, they felt the power of his words, and 
when he knelt with them in prayer they 
were ready to commit themselves to the 
Saviour in a sense of need and trust. Their 
Christian life was started at that time by 
that individual word to them, as all the 
sermons and pulpit appeals for years before 
had not influenced or been felt by them. 
From that hour that was a Christian house- 
hold, every child feeling its influence for 
good. And soon that new comer into the 
kingdom at middle life was chosen superin- 
tendent of the Sunday-school because he was 
149 



InDiviDual TOlorf? 

a better man for it than any man who had 
been trained from childhood in the church. 
So impressed was I by his methods in 
family worship that I adopted them in my 
own home, commended them to others, 
who were glad to adopt them, and incor- 
porated them as models for imitation in 
volumes where I treated the subject. Yet 
they were his own method, originated by 
himself, he never having been instructed in 
these methods, or any other. With all the 
advantages that unmistakably come from 
early training in conventional and approved 
practices, there are certain advantages that 
accrue from a fresh way of looking at truth 
by one who has just come to apprehend 
the truth as the truth is in Christ. And 
every wise believer will be ready to admit 
that it is better to win one soul by an un- 
conventional and original method than toad- 
dress a thousand souls in the most eloquent 
and approved method without winning one 
soul. It is the winning of souls, not the 
trying an approved method, that tells. 
ISO 



X 

personal Motft h^ ©tbers 

It must not be understood that this indi- 
vidual work by an individual, in behalf of 
souls, as described in this volume, is in any 
sense unique or exceptional. While it is 
here offered as personal testimony, it is here 
referred to as the kind of work that has 
had power in behalf of souls from the begin- 
ning, and that is likely to be most effective 
as long as God is God, and as souls are 
souls. 

For example, the preachers who are 
known as winning most souls to Christ 
are not preachers who expect to win souls 
in a great congregation by their eloquent 
and fervid appeals from the pulpit, but they 
are those who feel that the *' inquiry-meet- 
ing,'* or the *' after-meeting " which follows 
their best preaching services, has chief 
value in its enabling them to get face to 
151 



face with the needy sinner who is present 
in his needs. This has been so for cen- 
turies with the evangehsts and revivalists 
of most prominence and effectiveness. Any 
'' evangehst" who failed to give this evi- 
dence of his appreciation of the power of 
an individual with individuals for Christ 
and his cause, would be a failure in all his 
evangelistic labors. This conviction, in- 
deed, is the test of the preacher's interest 
in individual souls, and of his determina- 
tion to win them. 

A stationary fog-horn has its value on 
a reef, or a rocky shore, as a warning to 
those who approach the point of danger. 
We must; not say that this mode of sound- 
ing an alarm has no value, but we cannot 
suppose that a fog-horn, however clear its 
sound or well worked its mechanism, can 
fill the place of a coast guard of trained 
life-savers, who are on the watch to put out 
with their well-manned life-boat to save 
endangered single souls. There are differ- 
ent ways of working for individual souls. 
152 



pergonal IMlorft bs ©tbcr6 

Some of these ways are better than others, 
but all of them are a great deal better than 
none. 

More than thirty years ago, I was pres- 
ent at a meeting of clergymen of different 
denominations, where a proposition was 
being considered of inviting a well-known 
''evangelist'' to conduct a series of " revival 
meetings " in the community. Some of 
these clergymen criticized the methods of 
work and the manner of this evangelist. By 
and by a clergyman who was something of 
a sacramentarian in his views and practices, 
and therefore least likely to be in sympathy 
with revival methods, surprised all present 
by saying, earnestly : 

"You will understand that the public 
methods of this man, in his work, are not 
such as I myself should incline to; but I 
want to bear testimony to his fidelity to his 
Master in all his life course. I was his fel- 
low-student in college. I knew him well 
there, and I can speak understandingly of 
his ways. In all the four years of his col- 
153 



InDiviDual TlHlorft 

lege course, no student could be six weeks 
there without having to meet squarely the 
question of his personal relations to Christ, 
in consequence of the loving and earnest 
appeals of that follower of Christ. I knew 
more than one who was thus influenced 
by him. In my own case, I was a skeptic 
when I entered college, and I had little 
thought on the subject of religion anyway. 
But that man's appeals I had to meet, and I 
could not resist them. It is in consequence 
of his faithfulness that my life is given to 
the Christian ministry. And now, what- 
ever I think of that man's public Christian 
methods, I cannot but be grateful for his 
personal fidelity to his Master and ours." 

Those of us who heard that testimony in 
behalf of one who was faithful as an indi- 
vidual to individual souls, could not but 
feel that, apart from the question of the 
wisdom of his ordinary public methods for 
Christ, his spirit of faithfulness commanded 
our respect and approval. The true seeker 
after souls is too earnest in his work to be 
154 



personal TOork b^ ©tbera 

willing to divide his energies among more 
than one. That soul he loves, and that 
soul he must have. 

And it seemed to me, as I listened to this 
testimony as to that man's faithfulness to 
individuals for Christ, and as I thougjit over 
the matter afterwards, that his life choice 
of the work of an evangelist, or revivalist, 
may have pivoted on his success as an 
individual worker for individuals. As he 
had found that addressing a multitude did 
not win a multitude, but that appealing to 
an individual did often win the individual, 
may he not have chosen that kind of min- 
isterial work which gave most prominence 
to work with individuals for Christ ? As a 
worker for individuals, he had prominence 
in Christ's service, in widely different fields, 
for a whole generation. 

Another example of persistence in work 
for individual souls, which impressed me 
profoundly, was in another than the college 
sphere, although in the same earnest spirit. 
Soon after the Civil War, while enlistments 
I5S 



UnDlviDual "Morft 

for the regular army were still going on in 
different parts of the country, in order to 
bring up that army to its specified numbers 
on the peace basis, young officers, with a 
good record of service and of known effi- 
ciency, were assigned to this duty, and 
some of these officers did good work for 
Christ as well as for country. 

One such young officer was in turn as- 
signed to several New England cities, and 
made his mark for his Master in all of 
these fields of action and influence. Hav- 
ing the true idea of work for many as best 
done through work for one, he pressed 
that idea in all that he did, or that he 
urged others to do. His profession as a 
soldier led him to feel that the best way of 
winning recruits is by enlisting one man at 
a time, rather than by trying to win a room- 
ful by a patriotic speech. 

In each city to which he was assigned 

he naturally went to the Young Men's 

Christian Association as a hopeful center 

and starting-point. There he usually 

156 



IPereonal IKHork b^ Qtbcxe 

found the weekly prayer-meeting as per- 
haps the highest point of spiritual de- 
votion. But this was, to his mind, too 
much after the pattern of an ordinary 
church service, where the congregation 
was largely of church - members and 
church-goers, while he wanted to reach 
those who were still outside, but who were 
compelled to come in, against their ordinary 
preferences and inclinations. Hence to this 
work he vigorously set himself at once. 

Going into such a prayer-meeting, early 
in the evening, at one time, he asked the 
leaders how many persons had been sought 
out from the highways and byways that 
evening. On being told that nothing of 
the sort had been done, he asked that all 
should kneel at once in prayer, offering an 
ejaculation of consecration to this service, 
and of petition for help in this service, and 
then all should scatter to the street corners 
and drinking-places and gambling-houses, 
seeking souls, and urging them to come in 
where they could be helped. Fifteen min- 
is? 



UnDivtDual TDdlorft 

utes or more later they were to return to 
the Association rooms, and then they 
might have a hopeful prayer-meeting there. 
The first experiment was an eminent suc- 
cess, and its every repetition seemed an 
improvement on this. More of those for 
whom they had there hoped and prayed 
were gathered in in a single evening, under 
this plan of work, than under the old plan, 
or the no plan, in any one year before. 

Of course, the good results of this kind 
of effort were a surprise to those who had 
supposed that being willing to pay for a 
seat in church, or being willing to look up for 
themselves a regular religious service, was 
an essential preliminary to being a hopeful 
member of a regular congregation. This 
has been so, in fact, for centuries. In this 
case gamblers gave up gambling, drunkards 
gave up drinking, scoffers gave up scoffing, 
doubters gave up doubting, and those who 
had been counted as outcasts became glad 
and grateful followers of the Lord Jesus, 
urging their old associates to receive life in- 
158 



peraonal llHlotft bi2 ©tbera 

stead of death, as they had ah^eady accepted 
it. In one instance a rumseller, influenced 
by his now rescued customers, abandoned 
his vile pursuit and became an active re- 
cruiting officer for the Captain of his Salva- 
tion. Such results as this are natural when 
souls are sought one at a time by one who 
is in loving, living earnestness, intent in 
pursuit of that one soul. 

Such a teacher as this, in such a work as 
this, was a power for good over those whom 
he inspired and led in it. He did not pro- 
pose to do all the work which he pointed 
out. He simply convinced them that this 
was the way for its doing, and then he left 
them to do it. Those w^ho had never be- 
fore thought of this method of work took 
hold of it gladly and effectively under his 
direction. One of my army comrades 
whom I had been privileged to lead to 
Christ while in the army, told me of his 
experience in this man-to-man soul-hunting. 
He had kneeled in prayer in the Young 
Men's Christian Association rooms, and now 
159 



UnDiviDual Worft 

he was seeking souls. As he stood opposite 
a saloon he saw a young man, whom he 
had never seen before, apparently about 
going in. He stood at the turning of the 
ways. The story my friend told me was : 

" I tapped him on the shoulder. As he 
turned inquiringly to me, I said, ' Come, go 
with me, and Til do you good.' " 

*' Where do you want me to go?'* he 
asked. 

''Ifs a prayer-meeting of young men, 
IVe got good there, and I want you to get 
the same." 

"A prayer-meeting! I'm not dressed 
for prayer-meeting." 

"You're dressed enough. The Lord 
looketh not on the outward appearance. 
The Lord looketh on the heart." 

And then the recruiting officer for Christ 
drew his arm through the other's arm, and 
led him in the right way. In the Associa- 
tion rooms that new recruit rose, and told 
of his wish to serve Christ, and he asked to 
be prayed for by those present. And that 
i6q 



personal TOork b^ Otbcxe 

was the beginning of a new life for him. And 
this was only one instance among many. 

Of the work of this worker for Christ 
and for single souls I knew much in varied 
and widely different fields. In addition to 
all that he did for souls, he did yet more 
in leading others to work in this way for 
Christ. Several of these were, at the time 
of his meeting them, young men who were 
in preparation for the Christian ministry. 
They learned from him the great truth that 
it is better to work for one than for many. 
After that, not even a theological seminary 
could mislead them into the idea that it is 
better to appeal to a great congregation of 
those whom you cannot get at, than to ad- 
dress a single soul face to face and make a 
direct issue with him. 

These two instances of the student evan- 
gelist and of the army recruiting officer 
have been of themselves satisfactory proof 
that the ordinary and conventional work- 
ing for souls in the mass is not the best 
way, and that the best way is a better way. 
i6i 



InDiviDual 'ffillorft 

And my own experience of half a century- 
has tended to the same conclusion, in spite 
of my many shortcomings and failures. 

The real question is not, "Is this the 
best time for a personal word for Christ ? " 
but it is '^Am I wiUing to improve this 
time for Christ, and for a precious soul, 
whether it is the best time or not?" If 
the Christian waits until the sinner gives 
sign of a desire for help, or until the Chris- 
tian thinks that a loving word to the sinner 
will be most timely, he is not likely to 
begin at all. The only safe rule for his 
guidance — if indeed a Christian needs a 
specific rule as a guide — is to speak lov- 
ingly of Christ and of Christ's love for the 
individual whenever one has an opportu- 
nity of choosing his subject of conversation 
in an interview with an individual who may 
be in special need, yet who has given no 
special indication of it. This seems to 
have been Paul's idea in his counsel to 
young Timothy : ** Preach the word ; be in- 
stant in season, out of season; bring to the 
162 



I 



I 



pcreonal TDdorfi b^ ©tbeta 

proof, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffer- 
ing and teaching." The most important 
of all themes of converse would seem to be 
worthy of prominence in comparison with 
others. But does it ordinarily have this 
among Christians ? 

When, on one occasion, I had spoken on 
this subject at a Students* Conference in 
Northfield, a well-known Christian business 
man gave me an incident out of his own 
experience that well illustrates the truth I 
would here emphasize. He was on his 
way to an international convention of 
Young Men's Christian Associations in 
Montreal. As the train approached that 
city, a bright young man came into the car 
as a representative of a prominent hotel in 
Montreal, seeking guests for his hostelrj^ 
My friend inquired as to the location and 
advantages of the house, in view of the 
heat of summer, then prevailing. At once 
the young man waxed eloquent over the 
subject, and fairly convinced his hearer 
that this was the place for him. 
163 



As my informant arranged for a room 
there, he asked pleasantly of the zealous 
advocate : 

" My young friend, are you a follower of 
Jesus?" 

" I can*t say I am, sir,'* was the reply. 

''Well, if you were in Christ's service, 
and would plead as earnestly for his cause 
as you do for the hotel you now represent, 
you would be a valuable helper to your 
Master, and you might do a great deal of 
good to others. I wish you were in Christ's 
service, using your powers for him." 

The young man passed on through the 
car, and my friend went his way to the 
city, having simply said this word for his 
Master, as was his wont. It did not seem 
to be an exceptionally hopeful occasion, but 
who can tell ? 

Several years passed. My friend sat, 
one day, in his private office in a New Eng- 
land city. As he called out a question to 
some one in the hallway, his pleasant voice 
sounded through the building. Almost 
164 



liersonal TIHlorR b^ ©tbers 

immediately a strange young man appeared 
at the office door, and said : 

" Excuse me, sir ; but, may I ask, did 
you not attend a convention in Montreal, 
about the first of July, a few summers 
ago?^' 

"Yes, I did, as I well remember; but 
what of that ? '' 

" Do you remember speaking to a young 
man on the cars, and telling him you wished 
he would work for Jesus as faithfully as 
he was then working for a hotel in Mon- 
treal ? " 

" I think I do, now that you recall it.'* 

"Well, / cannot forget it. Your words 
rang in my ears. They resulted in bring- 
ing me into the service of Jesus, and now I 
am trying to speak words for him wherever 
I go. Being in this city on business to- 
day, I came into this building [where 
were the rooms of the Young Men's 
Christian Association], and as I was near 
your door I heard that voice which has 
been sounding in my memory all these 
i6s 



InDivlDual morft 

years, and I have come to thank you for 
what you have done for me." 

That delegate to the International Con- 
vention of Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciations did more by his word to an 
individual for Christ than if he had made 
half a dozen eloquent addresses in the 
convention. That is a fact to be borne 
in mind by all. Is it not worth while to 
be remembered pleasantly, as speaking lov- 
ingly for Jesus to those whom we meet in 
our daily life ? Why should any of us fail 
of saying the words, day by day, that may 
be thus remembered as having honored 
our Master, and as having helped those 
whom Christ loves? 



i66 



XI 

Mbg is personal Morft so 
5l2eGlecteD? 

If words for Christ to an individual are 
most effective in the winning of souls, why- 
are they not more commonly spoken by 
those who love Christ and love souls ? Is 
it because persons do not know this truth, 
or that they are incompetent to speak the 
needed words ; or do they simply neglect 
the duty which they recognize as a duty, 
and which they are amply competent to 
perform? Probably no one answer would 
meet every case. Different answers would 
be given in different cases. 

We do know that evil opposes good in 
the universe. Over against Ormuzd is 
Ahriman in the Zoroastrian religion. 
Over against God is Satan in the Bible 
teachings. It would seem that Satan de- 
sires to prevent any believer from speaking 
167 



InDiviDual Mork 

a word to an individual for Christ even 
while he does not expect to prevent all 
preaching to a whole congregation. His 
favorite argument with a believer is that 
just now is not a good time to speak on 
the subject. The lover of Christ and of 
souls is told that he will harm the cause he 
loves by introducing the theme of themes 
just now. Will not every disciple who 
has had experience in this line of effort 
admit that he has frequently found this 
to be the case? 

Out of my own experience I can bear 
testimony to this. From nearly half a cen- 
tury of such practice, as I have had op- 
portunity day by day, I can say that I have 
spoken with thousands upon thousands on 
the subject of their spiritual welfare. Yet, 
so far from my becoming accustomed to 
this matter, so that I can take hold of it as 
a matter of course, I find it as difficult to 
speak about it at the end of these years as 
at the beginning. Never to the present 
day can I speak to a single soul for Christ 
i68 



TObi3 10 IPeraonal Wioili 00 IHeslecteD 

without being reminded by Satan that I am 
in danger of harming the cause by intro- 
ducing it just now. If there is one thing that 
Satan is sensitive about, it is the danger of 
a Christian's Inarming the cause he loves by 
speaking of Christ to a needy soul. He 
has more than once, or twice, or thrice, 
kept me from speaking on the subject by 
his sensitive pious caution, and he has 
tried a thousand times to do so. There- 
fore my experience leads me to suppose 
that he is urging other persons to try any 
method for souls except the best one. 

This I do know, that men who have a 
national and an international fame as 
preachers to a multitude actually say — 
not only think, but say — that they cannot 
speak to an individual soul for Christ. In 
some instances these preachers speak of it 
as if they counted a sinner's personality too 
sacred to speak a word to, even to save his 
soul or to honor Christ. In other cases, 
they speak of their inability as an amiable 
weakness, instead of as a pitiable moral 
169 



UnDtviDual TOotF; 

and spiritual defect, which proves them 
incompetent for their position and profes- 
sion. Yet these claims or confessions have 
to be recognized in the attempt to an- 
swer the startling question, in view of all 
that is known of what has been, and of 
what might be, '' why is personal work so 
generally neglected?" 

Another reason why personal as over 
against collective work for souls is not so 
prominent or so attractive a line of religious 
effort on behalf of Christ or of those whom 
he loves, is that this seems insignificant in 
contrast with the other. Apart from any 
evidence or argument on the subject, is it 
to be supposed that a few personal words 
to an individual in a corner of a seat, or as 
one walks with another to or from a church 
service, is as likely to be impressive or con- 
vincing while only the one preacher and 
the one hearer know what is said, as are 
the words of an eloquent orator which echo 
and re-echo in a vast auditorium filled with 
a sympathetic audience ? Is not the stating 
170 



TRIlbig ie ipetgonal Tiaiorft 00 UleslecteO 

of that question its own prompt answering ? 
Whether on account of God or of Satan, the 
crowd has an obvious advantage in attrac- 
tiveness over the individual as an audience 
for a Christian who is in search of souls. 

Even if we are told not to despise '' the 
day of small things '' in comparison with 
the day of great things, we are inclined to 
prefer the latter for our own reputation, 
and to hope that it may have a gain in 
effectiveness. This is so in other warfare 
than that of Christ with his foes. My ex- 
perience in active service in the Civil War 
taught me, as I am sure it taught others 
on both sides in that conflict, that the 
thunder of artillery was likely to be most 
impressive, but that the rifles of the sharp- 
shooters brought down more men. This 
was peculiarly the case in the siege life be- 
fore Charleston and before Petersburg. The 
shriek and the crash of the bursting shell 
told in their impressiveness, especially upon 
those who were least experienced; but the 
quiet '' hum " or the " whiz '* of the rifle of the 
171 



In&iviDual TlBlorft 

sharpshooter did execution as ten to one, or 
as a hundred to one, in comparison. Yet 
the artillery officer who could tell of how 
many rounds he had fired in action could 
boast more of his service, even if he did not 
know that he had ever hit anybody, than 
could the best sharpshooter on the whole 
line. So it is with those who address in- 
dividuals for Christ. Sharpshooters may 
bring down more individuals with their 
teUing single bullets, but they cannot make 
the impression in the surrounding atmos- 
phere that is made by the big guns that 
are heard to thunder out from the pulpit 
casements every time they open fire. 



One more reason why pulpit casements 
and their thundering artillery have an ad- 
vantage over sharpshooters with their bullets 
aimed at single individuals, is in the train- 
ing that the men in the casements have had 
in preparation for active service. In most 
of the theological seminaries and divinity 
schools little special instruction is given in 
173 



WiM is ©et6onal TRHorft so UlefllecteD 

individual work for individual souls, and, 
in consequence, young ministers go out 
from those training schools without know- 
ing how to do the most important work of 
the ministry. In some of these training 
schools there is no professor competent to 
give instruction on the subject, even if it 
were desired as the most important thing 
to be sought after. Of course, an old min- 
ister, who never did anything in that line 
while he was a preacher, could not hope to 
teach a learner about it, when he himself 
was approaching the " dead - line." The 
magnitude of this difficulty can hardly be 
over-estimated as an obstacle to effective 
work for single souls among ministers and 
in the church. 

So intent is the average young minister 
or divinity student on his great work of 
preparation for preaching the gospel to all 
the world, or at least to a great congrega- 
tion, that he should hardly be expected to 
turn aside for the insignificant mission of 
speaking to an individual for Christ. A 
173 



single incident related to me by an active 
worker for individuals for Christ illustrates 
this truth startlingly. He was visiting a 
well-known divinity school in order to have 
an interview with a student. While wait- 
ing for that student he was improving his 
time, as usual, by seeking individual souls 
near him. Encountering a janitor, or other 
helper, in the hall, he had a pleasant, direct 
talk with him. He found a soul waiting to 
be helped. He led that soul to the Sav- 
iour. In conversation he found that al- 
though that soul had been long in the 
vicinity of embrj^o preachers, not a word 
had been spoken to him by one of them. 
They were waiting to be eloquent to a full 
congregation. Why should they waste 
their strength on a single soul ? That is 
an illustrative incident, even if it is not an 
instructive one. 

Pulpit preaching has had undue promi- 
nence among Protestants in comparison with 
other agencies for winning souls, since the 
days of the Reformation. And modern pul- 
174 



TKIlbi2 t0 iperaonal WioxJ^ eo UleglecteD 

pit preaching is more prominent as a mono- 
logue than that of the earlier Christian 
centuries. In the days of Chrysostom and 
of Augustine the preacher was readier to 
converse from the pulpit with the individual 
than is the modern preacher. In other 
words, modern preaching has neither the 
approval of high antiquity nor of practical 
reasonableness. More persons can be won 
singly than collectively. That was recog- 
nized in the ancient times. It would be 
recognized nowadays by all who would 
examine into the subject, and who were 
ready to be convinced by good sense, 
sound judgment, and experience. 

After all, it is the man-to-man work that 
tells. And because it is this work that is 
most effective, this is the work that it is best 
to do. Even though it is a less attractive 
work, as we look at it, and seems to others 
less important to be done, we must admit 
that the results are worth considering. As 
John B. Gough said of the one loving word 
of Joel Stratton that won him : '' My friend, 
175 



UnDtvfDual TKHorfi 

it may be a small matter for you to speak 
the one word for Christ that wins a needy 
soul — a small matter to you^ but it is every- 
thing to himy It is forgetting this truth 
that causes personal work to be neglected. 



176 



XII 

Unfluencet on ©tbers, of petBonal 
Conviction 

A man's belief of what he proclaims 
goes far to make it believed by others. So 
long as he himself has any doubt on the 
subject, he is not likely to convince those 
who are in doubt. This is true in every 
sphere of life. If a man sees his neighbor's 
house on fire, in the dead of night, his wild, 
ringing shriek of *' Fire ! Fire ! Fire ! Turn 
out! Turn out! Your house is afire!'* 
sounds out on the midnight air with a 
force that is itself convincing. All who 
hear it know that the one who utters it 
feels its truth, and wants others to feel it. 

How different it would be if a man 
should knock timidly at the house door, 
and say gently that he had reason to think 
that a fire was kindling in the vicinity, and 
that he thought it would be well to look 
177 



1ln&fvfC)ual 1imor?i 

into the matter. How could he expect 
dull sleepers to be aroused on such a call ? 
If his knowledge did not stir him more 
than this, how could he expect those yet 
asleep to be aroused from their torpor by 
him? 

Peculiarly is this the case with one who 
sounds a call to stir a sluggish soul to ac- 
tion, in view of truth that he deems pre- 
cious and all-important, but which the other 
is not very anxious about or fully convinced 
of. Any show of doubt, or indecision, on 
the part of God's herald, is calculated to 
shake the confidence of the hearer of the 
message. This has been found to be the 
case by every gospel preacher, or winner of 
single souls, in any sphere. Every show 
of earnestness, or evidence of intense con- 
viction, on the part of those who stand for 
Christ, gives added weight to each word 
of the message from the Captain of our 
Salvation. Hearty Governor Andrew, of 
Massachusetts, said of Abraham Lincoln, 
when he had assumed the presidency, " Fm 
178 



Unfluence, on ©tbers, ot personal Conviction 

glad weVe got a man who believes some- 
thing/' If a man would have another 
believe something, he must believe some- 
thing himself. 

An earnest young clergyman in New 
England, whom I know well, began his 
ministry in a parish where his predecessor 
had lacked strong conviction, and had en- 
couraged, if not cultivated, doubts. The 
new clergyman's beliefs were startling to 
his congregation. One Sunday, after the 
service, a bright young man came up to 
the minister, and said : 

" I don't believe what you are preaching, 
and I want to discuss your beliefs with 
you.'' 

"Well, my friend, there's no use in our 
doing that. I am convinced, and you don't 
want to be. I am set here to preach the 
truth that I believe, whether my hearers 
believe it or not." 

Weeks went on. The minister saw his 
young friend, Sunday after Sunday, in the 
gallery. One Sunday the minister invited 
179 



all who wanted to converse with him on 
the matter of personal religion to come to 
his study on Monday evening. That even- 
ing this young man appeared. Coming up 
to the pastor's study table, where the pas- 
tor sat, he said: 

" I am here to-night, not lor argument, 
but for counsel. IVe watched you and 
have heard you for weeks. I know that 
you have got something that I haven't. 
Now I want you to tell me how I can get 
your crucified Christ.'' 

The preacher was ready to help that 
seeker. And another soul was won to 
Christ through the counsel of a believer 
who had convictions. 



It is the same with a Christian preacher 
as it is with a Christian layman in work for 
Christ. The truth in each case is the same, 
and the power of a conviction is felt alike 
by the hearer, whoever is the declarer of 
the truth. One who was widely known as 
faithful in good words and good works in 
i8o 



Influence, on ©tbete, ot IPeteonal Conviction 

Eastern Massachusetts told me of his ex- 
perience in this line. He was accustomed 
to ride out from Boston daily to and from 
a suburban town. One who was frequently 
his seat-mate was a man prominent as an 
unbeliever, and who edited a free-thinking 
periodical. Again and again this man en- 
deavored to draw my friend into discussion 
on the subject of religion, but without suc- 
ceeding in so doing. One day my friend 
openly met the matter in this way: 

"I do not want to have a discussion with 
you on the subject of religion. I'm no 
match for you in argument. You'd get the 
better of me every time. But, apart from 
that, one thing I know, that the Lord Jesus 
Christ is my Saviour, and I trust him all 
the time. This is the comfort of my life, 
and I wish you had the same comfort.'* 

At this his pertinacious seat-mate brought 
his hand down sharply on my friend's knee, 
and said heartily: 

" There you've got me, my friend. I've 
nothing to offer against that." 
i8i 



InDtviDual iraiorlft 

My friend's conviction was his best and 
his resistless argument. '' I know whom 
I have believed" will convince another if 
anything will. No method of discussion 
will take its place with any hearer. 



An experience of my own in the modern 
Athens emphasized this truth. I was in 
an office where I occasionally had business, 
and, as I was talking with the proprietor, I 
said, as he asked my opinion in a matter 
of principle : 

"The Bible says so and so." 

" What Bible ? " he inquired sharply, al- 
most defiantly. 

"The Bible," I replied to this question, 
quietly but firmly. 

" Muhammadans have one Bible. Bood- 
dhists have another Bible. Jews have an- 
other Bible. Chinese have another Bible. 
Which Bible do you mean?" he responded. 

" The Bible," was my response. 

"Well, I suppose I know what you 
mean." 

182 



UnfluencCt on ©tber^t of personal Conx^iction 

That was a point gained to start with. 
He admitted that '' The Bible" was not to 
be put on a plane with the others, so that 
he was really in no doubt on the subject. 

"But;* he added, "I don't agree with 
you as to the value of the Bible/' 

"I'm sorry," I replied. 

"You think, I suppose," he went on to 
say, "that the Bible is God's word." 

"Of course I do." 

" Well, won't you try to prove to me that 
it is so?" 

"No, indeed." 

" Wouldn't you like to have me believe 
the Bible?" 

"Of course I should." 

"Well, then, why not try to convince 
me?" 

" If God has failed in this, with all that 
he has done for you in a third of a cen- 
tury, I don't propose to set my little hazel- 
nut brain at the task at this late day." 

" Why, then, won't you prove to me that 
God is what you believe him to be ? " 
183 



lnt)iviDual IKIlorft 

"The subject is too sacred for ordinary 
discussion. I wouldn't consent to discuss 
with you the question whether my mother 
was really my mother ; yet God is dearer 
to me than is my mother or my father." 

At this I left the office without further 
comment. A few weeks later I was there 
again. He said: 

" I understand, Mr. Trumbull, how you 
feel about the Bible ; so I won't ask you to 
discuss it. But have you any objection to 
telling me what you understand the Bible 
to teach on certain points?" 

" Not in the slightest," I replied. 

Then the way was open for a frank, free, 
and reverent conference over the teachings 
of the Bible ; and the man who had been 
a scoffer was ready to be told the truth 
as to Bible teachings by one who had no 
doubts on the subject, and who therefore 
commanded confidence. Several such con- 
ferences as this seemed to bring this man 
into a different attitude toward the Bible 
and its teachings. After a longer absence 
184 



Influence, on ©tbets, of ©ersonal Conviction 

than usual from Boston, when I was once 
more in the ofifice of this man, he said to 
me: 

" Mr. Trumbull, will you tell me just 
where is your home?'* 

As I told him, he said : 

" IVe been very sick. I thought I was 
going to die, and I wanted to send for 
you." 

Then, as if to show that he had not 
wholly abandoned his disbelief, he added : 

" Not that I was really troubled about 
myself or my beliefs, but you seem so con- 
fident in your beliefs, that, if I was going 
to die, I wanted you to talk with me.'' 

The way was then open for a free talk 
about Christ and his salvation, which I 
tried to improve for that needy soul. " For 
their rock is not as our Rock, even our 
enemies themselves being judges." We 
surely ought to be confident in our beliefs, 
and impress others by this confidence, as 
we seek to win them to their Saviour and 
ours. We have every advantage, and we 
185 



UnMviDual xaorft 

should show this in our loving labor for 
souls. 

Intense conviction, showing itself in in- 
tense personality, marks the difference be- 
tween an ordinary leader, or counselor, 
and an exceptional one. It was not the 
number of his soldiers, but his power to 
use every man as if he were ten men, or 
a hundred, that made Napoleon, or Phil 
Sheridan, the general that he was. Surely 
he who has Christ back of him in his every 
word and his every deed, ought to feel that 
he is wielding the power of the Almighty 
when he acts or speaks for his Saviour in 
that Saviour's work. 



i86 



fi«vt a? 1801 



SEP 12 1901 



